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FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

FIELDS AND
BATTLEFIELDS

By
No. 31540

NEW YORK

RoBEXT M. McBride &f CoMPAmr
I9I8

THE

PDI

YO^.K

AOTfT

CopTright 19x8
by
^T M. McBRIDE ^ OOMPANT

THE NEW YORK .
PUBLIC LIBRARY •

837640 i

ASTOH, LENOX /^^D ]
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

R 1918 L

Printed in the United States of America,

Published August, 19IS

CHAPTER

PAGE

THE TOWN .

II.

THE CONVENT

FESTUBERT

. 30

IV.

BESIDE THE CANAL

> SI

WALPURGIS' DANCE

. 71

VI.

A CHRISTMAS

. 97

VII.

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

122

VIII.

THREE WOMEl^

141

IX.

THE HIGHWAY

. 162

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

. 18s

XI.

"what is your RELIGION ?" .

> 212

XII.

HOMO LOQUITUR .

> • <

237

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

CHAPTER I

THE TOWN

"My ejtt I lend to jon* bttt not my hMit.**

Old Fifty.

THE town of Bailleul stands upon a hill and may
be seen over your shoulder for a two days*
march, but the town of Steenweric lies below on
liie plain of Flanders and peers above the orchards and
willow trees surrounding it. Bailleul is a center of
gaiety. Bands play of a Sunday afternoon in the
market place, Charlie Chaplin is seen every night by
crowded audiences in the Y.M.C.A. Cinema, and the
correct incidental music is provided. There are, or
were, concerts every evening at the Caisse d'Epatgne.
All the important journals — La Vie Parisienne, The
Cambridge Magaeine, The Listening Post, John Bull,
The Feathered World-^-cam be borrowed or bought;
^nd English beer can be found in limited quantities.
Also an English soldier once chose a wife among the
daughters of Bailleul and married her: yet it is not
of Bailleul but of Steenwerk that I wish to write.

^Written before the German offensive of 1918. It it
feared that these towns are now in ruins.

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

There was a time when Steenwerk set herself to rival
in gaiety her sister on the hill. It was during the
tenancy of the market place by some Motor Trans-
port men of great originality and enterprise. There
was no regular brigade band on Sundays* but these
talented ones could render the opening bars of The
Rosary on the horns of their motor-lorries. They set
up a cinema of their own and worked it themselves,
they assembled an orchestra of one man and two or
three instruments, but the instruments did not long
survive. Concerts were given at which R.A.M.C. men
sang, and if marriages were not made in Steenwerk that
was nobody's fault.

For in our own phrase there were *'beaucoup
Mamselles" in Steenwerk. I recall as sweet a vision as
any of its kind. Once on entering the town I passed
a young person wearing a red dress and apron. She
carried water pails slung over her firm shoulders and
walked in spite of them with the grace of perfect
simplicity, or of perfect art She did not raise her
eyes. Her face was pale — a niaid pale in the spring.
Doubtless she thought of no khaki soldier but of one
in cornflower blue, with perhaps a coflfee-mill of hers
in his pack, a red sash round his waist, and eyes more
eloquent than ours.

Yet Steenwerk, little city of the plain, thou art ever
remembered not for youth, or pleasure, but because
from thy precincts we first looked back to England
from a land at war.

THE TOWN

In Steenwerk we first became European. But it was
from the old we chiefly learned our lessons.

A good soldier is always learning lessons, if not
from his military duties, then from his civil duties.
Having cut himself off from the ties and obligations
of common life, he is the more bound in honor to
observe them in others. It is also his inclination to
do so. In the army, although "no expressions of
sentiment are allowed," this is but a confession of
weakness. La vie ntititaire is above all la vie senti-
mentale. For sentiment we enlisted, we live, we die,
and until the sentiment called Liberty is become a
fact of this world, armies — ^those quixotic bands —
will continue to exist. And while we endure the
isolation of army life sentiment alone saves us. Thus
Sergeant Booky proposed to French ladies once a
month. When questioned on the subject he replied,
"Practice makes perfect." He had a song of his own
for s}rmpathetic occasions —

*'Almong soldar no bong,
Anglay toldar tont sweet.**

This, when sung to an effective tender tune, had
made great impressions. French women understand
these matters very well, but sometimes their cursed
native realism makes itself felt.

Thus Sergeant Booky to my knowledge received
something like a coup de grace on one occasion. We
were together in an estaminet when he opened the kind
of conversation that led up to a proposal. The lady was

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

something beyond youth in years, in person both moth-
erly and attractive, with rosy cheeks and brown eyes.
She stood at her stove adding more coffee into the cof-
fee-pot which sat on the fire day and night all the
year round. She waited, listening to Booky, and
stirred the pot as she listened. A man wearing
corduroys sat near by smoking a clay pipe and spitting
solemnly at intervals into the hearth. The conversa-
tion reached the stage at which the proposer said,
**Voulez vous aimer, desirer, alter promenarder avec
moif* Others joined in. The lady of the estaminet
replied to some one else as well as to Booky, ''Mais
oui, deux ueufs, anglay beaucoup promenard/' Then
Booky said, ''Avez vous un mari A la guerre ou voulez
vous moif' At which the lady looked at him with
arched brows for a moment in silence, then as to her-
self she remarked, "Mais c'est un enfant" and con-
tinued to look at Booky in a disconcerting fashion as
though she was comparing his height and probable
weight to that of her own little boy 6i the same age.
Some time after this I received a commission from
Booky, when I was about some shopping on a large
scale, to buy him a tube of pomard hongroise for his
moustache.

But Mack^ who like myself preferred serious to
tender conversation, discovered the watchmaker of
Steenwerk and advised me to make his acquaintance. I
did so on a later occasion.

The watchmaker of Steenwerk lived in the smallest

THE TOWN

shop in Europe, so small indeed that the shop win-
dow contained only his head and beard. From outside
we peered through at him as though we were visitors
at the Zoo, at the cage of a small bear. The shop
within was so low that a man of ordinary height had
to bend his head. Not more than two customers could
occupy the shop at one time. Monsieur the watch-
maker sat in his window, but he could serve at his
counter by turning in his chair. When you entered
he wotdd unscrew the magnifying glass from his eye,
take one or two keys and cog-wheels out of his beard
and replace them carefully on his table, turn half
round, and then call for Marie his wife. "Please,
Monsieur," said he to the customer, "be careful of my
counter ; it was broken and I had it mended, and then
but the other day un ecossais leaned upon it, a weighty
man, and you see it is again broken. Marie, here is
one who wants deux aiguilles — ^it is not possible."

Monsieur had very small soft hands. He. was a
great craftsman and known all over France for his
knowledge of clocks and watches, not only of modem
but also of the ancient makes. He told me this him-
self on one occasion and added, "I am a man of edu-
cation." Monsieur believed that the war would by
then have been over if Jaur6s had not been abimS by
the traitors. But whatever the plight of France, over
which he was complaisantly tragic, it was well for
Monsieur and his business that Madame Marie, his
wife, had not met with the fate of Jaures. He called

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

for her every two minutes, whether for his spectacles
mislaid beyond his immediate range of vision, whether
for some tiny tool of his crafty or for the smoking
lamp, or more often to soften some soldier customer
whose watch had been overlooked for too many weeks.
At the sound of her name she appeared noiselessly as
a ghost, through a half-closed door, and was at his
side at once scolding and explaining softly. She had
a white pasty face but with sprightly eyes, and she
always wore a pink square garment. She had an air
of having grown old indoors and of knowing her shop
as an oyster its shell. She had also a kind of mother-
of-pearl beauty composed of soft shades of patience,
gentleness, and hope. She never despaired in her
mediations. She would enter to find a customer come
after his watch — some stolid youth in khaki, standing
gloomily before her husband who rallied him for being
impatient, mondain, for not considering the political
and economic conditions of France, for not respecting
the good faith of the educated craftsman. Then
Madame Marie, having already overheard the custo-
mer's request from behind the door, lost no time in
words but took out her order-book and bent her head
down to the page. The customer in reply to his own
shortcomings would say, "But we're likely marching
to-morrow, Mister. You've had it a fortnight and
you said it would take you doo joo, two days — ^never
mind a pal of mine's wat you've lost altogether." For-
tunately, neither side fully understood the other, and

THE TOWN

as Monsieur would often end his discourse with a
sweet and childish smile across his beard, it was diffi-
cult to be angry with him. Madame Marie would then
lay the order-book before him on top of all the tools
and cog-wheels, and together they would move their
fingers up and down the columns. Two pairs of spec-
tacles and two pairs of sorely-tried old eyes were
ocercised to decipher their own writing. At last, after
infinite discussion, a number would be agreed upon,
while the customer sank into a deeper gloom. Then
three or four little packages tied up with string would
be routed out as likely to be the missing watch, two
of which — ^Mon Dieu — had the same munber upon
ihem. But then after all the thing was explained. On
one package some one had written Corporal Tom-
Tom, and was not the customer's name Corporal
Thompson? and the watch after all has been waiting
for him for more than a week.

When you emerge from the smallest shop in Europe
it is likely that you may have an idSe fixe about a
drink. You can get a glass of citron opposite, and a
slice of pain d* ipice, but you will have to eat and
drink standing up with your head in a cloud of fancy
aprons hanging from the ceiling. But if you are an
"old soldier*' you will turn to your right up the main
street and go into Le Cerf estaminet for the purpose
of drinking French beer.

Now it is fairly well known that old soldiers never
die.

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"Old soldiers nevER die,
'They fade away."

But it may be worth while to hear about one who did
die, and to hear it in the proper setting, for the story
was going about at that time fresh from the mint.
Le Cerf is a long low room fitted with little tables
and decorated with hand-painted hunting scenes in
panels along the walls. The hunting scenes were in
greens and browns. The animals represented were
full of vigor and set off by little churches and houses
in the background. It is a hot sultry evening. The
place is crowded and is filled with smoke. Beer lies
in little pools on the floor, or on the tables. Qjnversa-^
tion of all kinds in many different dialects is heard on
all sides. But here is a group dominated by a single
speaker. He is obviously an old soldier by his hard-
bitten face and round black eyes like two plums in a
plum pudding, and although he tolerates his younger
listeners he addresses his conversation to another of
the same breed, but of the silent variety, who reclines
upon the chair immediately in front of him. At su-
preme moments in his conversation the speaker will
throw his remarks into the form of a question. But
this is only for effect. No reply is desired or expected,
and the reclining one opposite opens his mouth only
for the purpose of admitting beer, occasionally nod-
ding his head sagaciously.

Thes6 Falstaffs understand each other perfectly.
The younger listeners, members of a new degenerate

THE TOWN

army, may learn lessons if they wish. The theme of
the conversation was the base quality of malt liquors
as supplied by the French. "You can get stout 'ere,"
said the speaker, glaring at one of the painted panels
on the wall, "but it's now good, it's now good. 'Ere
*ave I been 'avin* a one, a t' other, or a 'alf-and-'alf off
the bloomin' reel waitin' for them blinkin' 'ounds to
catch that alleluia stag these two hours, but I dunno,
&3t bloke in a mess jacket wiv a chase-me fewer on
his 'ead won't let 'em slip, 'e won't. No, chum — ^this
ain't a Christian country for no Christian war wiv no
drinl^ you'd give the 'oly name of beer ter. And some
of our orfficers they'r that innocent they couldn't lead
a little child down a garden path. They couldn't — ^not
a little child — ^they wants to get a rope bloody ladder
and climb straight up to 'eaven — some of 'em. They
do straight. On my life. Why, there's some of 'em
will talk to yer like a farver fust and then 'ave it
you're drunk arter. I've said to some of 'em, I've

said Why, there's some of 'em never seen our

lads boozed in this flamin' country at all ; they can't do
it. / know for a bloody fact they can't." Here the
speaker leaned forward breathing beer upon us and
sending his round black eyes right and left as if in
alarm of spies.

"Now you mayn't belee what I'm goin' to say, but
if yotill belee me it's the gorspel truth. Did you know
Charley Crabtree in the Corps in the old days ? Make-
weight Charley they called 'im 'cause he knew wot

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

corpses made up to after P.M.s. You knew 'im — ^he
was post mortem orderly — ^no one could beat him at
that job out in Africa wot with the flies and the heat
and the corpses and one thing and another, but blimey
he could drink like a fish. / never seen any one like
him. Well, out 'ere he was Corporal Crabtree! At
the beginning of this 'ere war he put up two stripes on
his own, and his South Africa ribbon, and 'listed. Of
course he were no chicken, and they were glad to *ave
him in Aldershot in September. But out 'ere I Lord
lummy he didn't half carry on 1 He couldn't do with
this beer. Of course he wouldn't of come over if he'd
a known, he'd 'ave arranged otherwise, 'cause he was
fifty-two / knew for a bloody fact. But if you'll belee
me it took 'im so bad — ^his not getting drunk and one
thing and another, all along of this 'ere beer, and
mind he'd left no stone unturned, that he vowed he'd
get boozed if he took all day over it. Stripes! He
didn't mind about his stripes. 'The Lord gave and
the Lord may take 'em away,' he used to say. Well,
one day he cut all parades. He knew what he were
in for. Stayed away all bloomin' day. Of course he
knew of a little house on the quiet where he'd fixed it
up. His unit were in rest at the time. He stayed away
all day and did the thing pukker. And he must have
put some away, too, for I knew Makeweight Charley
wot he could put away. But could he get boozed on
this baptizing liquor? . . . Could he?" . . .
Here the speaker sat back in his chair and, turning

THE TOWN

his head slowly, gave us a kind of foreshortened glare,
expressive of the fiercest scorn.

"Could he?" he shouted.

Then bending forward again suddenly he continued.

"And what riled him most — ^this was from wot I
heard after. There were two cooks knew where he
were, silly bloody fellers who'd get boozed on their
own tea, and they got blindo and wanted to take him
back to billets with 'em singin* and carryin' on.

"But he wouldn't go with 'em, he wouldn't. Walked
back by hisself and give hisself up to the guard sober
as a gent. Yus.

"And if you'll belee me he died in the night of a
broken 'eart.

"They called it V.D.H., but I knew better. But "

And here the speaker leaned forward again, and
held us with his eyes.

**Only think what he*d been through/'

But to reflect properly on the enormity of this and
other tragedies, let us leave that wan beery atmosphere
and its clink of glasses and continue our way up the
main street. Perhaps the salient guns can be heard
and you may overhear one officer's servant confide an
important rumor to another. Through the press of
men, N.C.O.s, interpreters and others, a staff motor-
car hoots its way impatiently. It is a relief to find
some place of quiet. There are several little shops
facing the street with shop windows, but apparently

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

no doors. The way to enter one is to choose a hail-
door near by, open it, descend some steps and open
one of several doors until you find the proper parlor.
Here you may buy picture post-cards, Menier choco-
late. Sunlight soap, embroidered aprons, Euthymol,
chocolate pralinSs, beetroot sugar, and shaving soap.
In these little parlors some conversation with your
hostess will often bring a hundred friendly qualities to
light. In a back parlor you may be treated to coflfee
in a china bowl and stir it in a blessed silence while
you look out on a strip of back garden where vege-
tables grow in neat rows. In this haven, forgetful of
time, you may watch Madame polishing the rails of
her stove, or having undressed her child hold him
upon her lap and repeat, sentence by sentence, a little
Latin prayer. A chain clock on the wall ticks out the
hours convenient to eating, sleeping and praying. The
great stream of Life underflowing the gnat-like gyra-
tions of men is revealed for a moment ; and for a mo-
ment you, too, may dip in it and ease all thought, all
baneful flutterings.

At the end of the main street is the market place
through which all are now strolling back to billets.
The tall Gothic church occupies most of the square
and around it the big transport lorries are lined, wheel
to wheel. Along one side of the square there runs a
little river, beyond which are small gardens and the
houses of prosperous citizens. Each house has a pri-
vate bridge across the river. At seven o'clock every

THE TOWN

evening the priest crosses one of these bridges on his
way to church, and presently some women in black
and little girls follow him in. There are many of us
who will not forget the first time we, too, pushed open
the red baize door and entered a French churclt Out-
side, at that hour, hurrying men's feet, noise, laughter
and the sound of a mouth organ. An early star shines
down upon the scene, one of many such little vortices
of men and their intentions to be found at that mo-
ment all over Europe. But within, candlelight and
the soft noise of Aves. The women kneel before
their shrines, the children go hand in hand from one
saint to another down the aisles. The priest beckons
to the OMifessional, a figure rises and follows. Here
also is a pageant, also one of many to be found at that
moment all over Europe. Consider it well. It is not
unrelated to that other noisy pageant outside. Indeed,
without this within, perhaps that without would be
impossible. Without, we soldiers, politicians, drink-
ers, journalists, blowers of mouth-organs, all of us
eternally engaged in fighting, in interpreting, in inflict-
ing wounds, in binding them up, in sacrificing our-
selves, in all forms of quixotism, which we are pleased
to call reality. Within, Humanity eternally compen-
sating itself for its own follies, already united in a
community of sorrow.

The red baize door swings to behind us again. The
pleasant reassuring noise and spectacle again present
themselves. And we — are we not the van of the com-

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

mon men of Great Britain enlisting in their hundred
thousands ? Are we not the first of Kitchener's Army ?
Shan we, too, swirl and vanish and leave no trace?
Shall our deeds, too, need to be compensated for?
Perish the thought. It is ever important to remember
one's own inqx>rtance. What great things are already
whispered by officers* servants and other persons who
really know. And Italy has just joined the Allies.
The war will be over in three months or four. "Which
way to the Divisional Rest Station, chum? Turn to
your right at the end of the square and youll find the
flag on your left. Good-night'*

CHAPTER II

THE CONVENT

"What IS pourquoif . . .
I would I had bestowed that time in the tongrues
That I have in fencing, dancing and bear-baiting."

Twelfth Night

IN the days of yore, in peace time, the convent was
occupied by nuns who led a holy life and, with other
ministrations, kept a school for girls. But even before
our day they had all departed. The school was closed
to pupils, and nothing remained except the images of
saints on brackets, texts and pictures of the Sacred
Heart which hung on the walls. The convent build-
ings were not in themselves old, yet they retained an
ancient atmosphere among their fruit trees. They
were divided from each other by little paddocks and
vegetable gardens. We had arrived one evening in
May after a march of twenty miles or more, and
when we fell out I and others sat down in one of these
litde paddocks and leaned our backs against an apple
tree. A faint old-world odor greeted us, pigeons
flapped their wings upon the tiled roofs, a cat jumped
over the wall. Hither we had come from England —

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

by sea, by train, and on our own feet : and rested here
and not elsewhere.

But the place had soon become the scene of incred-
ible labors, for the divisional sick to the number of
fifty had here to be accommodated, and ''old world
odors" were not appreciated by medical science.
Wards, receiving-room, isolation wards, pack store,
dispensary, bath-house, quarter-master's stores, cook-
houses and billets for the ambulance, had all to be or-
ganized out of a number of detached buildings of one
and two stories in height, all of which communicated
with each other through courts and round paved cor-
ners in a bewildering way. The orderly sergeant had
to rise fully five minutes before his wont in order to
thread this lab)rrinth before reveille.

Of all the roles picturesquely filled, in that our first
Divisional Rest Station, I recall that of Peter G., the
bath orderly, as the most romantic. He and his tubs
found themselves in a pleasant vinehouse, a brick floor
beneath them, and the vines above them hanging from
the glass roof. He heated his water at a copper and
himself set upon a tub under a large statue of the Ma-
donna, who presided over the company from a high
pedestal, her head wreathed in vine leaves. Peter G.
was an Irishman and a Catholic, and knew how to
respect the Madonna. He marshalled his patients at
the proper times and moved between their naked
bodies through the steamy twilight of his realm with
a grave and deliberate air, and with a sense of mys*

THE CONVENT

tery. Peter had known many jobs in his time and
had visited many places on his two feet before the
war, but this job appealed to all the complexities of his
nature. Here he was at once priest, medicine man,
stoker of fires, stem usher, collector of tales, sanitary
expert, and penseur; and was, moreover, left very
much imder his own orders as far as his particular
duties were concerned.

Patients for admission to hospital came first into
the receiving- and casualty-room, which had formerly
been a school room of the convent. It was large and
airy, and had a floor of black and white tiles. The
patients sat in a row under a large text, "Laissez venir
a mot l^ petits enfants" Here one morning I found
myself on duty. I collected the sick reports from the
patients and arranged them in order for the M.O., who
stood in a degage way at his desk at a suitable dis-
tance. The sterilizer shone in the sun, and a scrubbed
table supported such implements as a thermometer in
a vase of carbolic, a tongue depressor, a case of dental
instrtunents. The Primus stove roared softly in a
comer and Harry E., with another orderly, were al-
ready at work dressing boils and applying foments. I
collected a new sick report and waited for the M.O.
to initial the last. The patients were not, as a rule,
suffering from severe complaints, but to the uninitiated
in those early days many of them appeared quite
serious enough. I frequently envied the calm of the
M.O. who, though no older than myself, had many

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

years' experience of out-patients behind him. This
calm I noticed grew more pronounced when the pa-
tient gave us a series of those dark and baffling symp-
toms so distressing to the ear of sympathy.

"Next patient," and a robust-looking youth came
forward.

"What's your trouble?*' said the M.O., without look-
ing at him.

No answer. The patient opened his mouth. He had
probably not heard the question, owing to the noise
of the Primus stove.

"What's your troubled The M.O. turned round
and allowed his professional eyes to dwell upon the
case.

"Please, sir, I have shooting pains from my right
kidney to my left tentacle — and all over **

For myself I believed the man already as good as
dead, but the M.O. did not seem to be startled.

"How long have you been like this?"

"Please, sir, I felt it come on last Wednesday, but
then it was in my knees." The M.O. put one hand
behind the patient and with the other gave him a
friendly dig in the stomach.

"Do you feel that?"

"No, sir."

"Have you a sore throat? Show me youf tongue."

The patient tried to speak and put out his tongue at
the same time. A strange gulp was the result.

But the M.O. appeared suddenly to rouse himself

THE CONVENT

from the meditation and banged his fist on the desk.

"A good purge, orderly. Ol ricini an ounce and a
half and let him rest a bit in the mortuary. Next
patient/'

The mortuary, so-called, was a nice room next door,
not often used for corpses at that time. Sometimes
the nature of the purge was left to the N.C.O. or to
the orderly, who had to choose between three then
commonly in use. Sparky, who was a corporal in
those days, had a method of his own for deciding the
suitability of a purge for a given patient.

"Let's see, you want a purge? What's your re-
ligionr

"C. of E., Corporal."

Then Sparky would repeat to himself an empirical
formula —

"Presbyterian — Number nine.
R.C.— Calomels three.
Church of England— Castor oil."

This was a case of showing initiative on Sparky's
part. If religions have a column to themselves in A
and P books, on sick reports and ward-sheets, why
not, he argued, connect them up with reality in some
suitable manner. But this Church and State method
which we adopted from Sparky once brought me into
a very singular situation.

One morning a motor transport sergeant appeared
in the receiving-room with a sick report all to himself.

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

He explained his symptxwns loftily, but he did not
greatly impress the M.O. on duty. He was awarded
a homely remedy. Now, as his religion was correctly
noted down R.C., it followed that three little tablets
df calomel would meet his case. These he took, be-
lieving them to be something soothing, and other than
what Nature designed, and departed again to his
motor-lorries in the market place. The day passed for
me in an ordinary way. The Primus stove required
attention; some equipment that rightfully belonged
to ordnance pannier A was found lurking in ordnance
pannier C, and had to be restored ; I read a little in the
book I had begun in England ; the M.O. gave me some
thoughts on varicose veins; an excitement occurred
over a cup of tea made with tea tablets, which were a
novelty in those days. Yes, the day was an ordinary
one. Sparky came on duty after tea and I went out
for a walk. My steps led me past the church, and fol-
lowing my destiny, I entered. The usual quiet scene
presented itself. Three widows knelt in a row telling
their beads. But my attention was attracted to the
fine western gallery supporting the organ, from
whence came sounds of some one very busily ham-
mering and also of an occasional organ note. I found
the turret leading to the gallery and ascended it. The
hammering came from the center of thfe organ. A
man in khaki stood in front of it staring into the
pipes. I started likewise. What holy work was here
toward?

THE CONVENT

"He's a-mending of it," said the man.

"I hope he knows about organs," I said. But my
words produced a terrible eflfect. The hammering
ceased a moment and a face peered through the pipes
full of rage. I did not recognize the face at first, but
caught a kind of association in the words that fol-
lowed.

Thus spake the organ: "Blimey if that ain't the
bloke that gim me them three little blinkin' tablets this
morning." Bang — ^bang — crash. "Upset me more
than if I'd swallowed all Sankey and Moody. I didn't
want a purge — ^told yer I didn't want a purge. Wot
d'yer think I've got an inside like this 'ere organ not
played on for ten years then?" Here an eight-foot
pipe roared deafeningly: "Wot d'yer call ycrselves?"
Bang. "Call yerselves Medicals?" Bang. Crash.
"You and yer orfficer. D'yer know what I'd call yer?
I'd call yer C. C. sharp, a mob of blinkin' stomach
plumbers. Wait till I get this vox humana mended
and I'll let yer know — ^what — I'd call — ^yer *'

The face through the pipes, the fury and grotesque-
ness of the creature, the suddenness of the onslaught,
took me completely by surprise. I was unable to re-
ply. I cast in my mind for some explanation. It
seemed as if I had encountered one of those malicious
spirits said to haunt sacred edifices in the Middle
Ages : known and pacified by our gothic ancestors with
statues of griffins, gargoyles and the like. But cer-
tainly it needed some assuagement here or the wi-

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

dows below would be disturbed and the souls of rheir
husbands lack prayers. But presently the spirit ex-
tracted itself in some mysterious fashion from the or-
gan. Then I recognized the motor transport seri;*eant
who had reported sick that morning. Certainly his face
had a meagre, gargoyle expression.

But I remained silent before him. How could I
explain?

"R.C. — calomels three/' I repeated to myself. But
I felt he would not understand* I stood with bowed
head waiting for the storm.

But apart from his organ body he appeared to be
of a less tumultuous nature. His next words were
gently uttered, and he seemed softened. "Mending
organs is my 'obby," he said. "I got an afternoon off
owing to you and turned my attention to this." He
laid his hand lovingly on the manuals. "I've promised
to mend it for the priest. It's not been played on for
ten years, as I remarked before, but it's not a bad
instrument."

"I am interested in organs myself," J said.

After that we were friends and entered into con-
versation. He told me to return the following evening
at six o'clock and that he would then play to me. I
left the church musingly, and with a sense of the
mystery of circumstances.

But there were other medicines administered in the
receiving-room besides the three I have mentioned.

THE CONVENT

Most of the ailments were homely ailments and need-
ed homely remedies. Dover's powder tablets was a
favorite one. We, the helots of medical science,
understood from our masters that if a Dr -r's powder
tablet failed of one remedy it had still a fair chance
of hitting one of two others. There must have been
the wisdom of the ages in this, for I have known
Dover's powders cure an astonishing variety of ills.
That receiving-room was, after all, a very useful
schooling for much that was to follow after. There
we first learnt how to take the scientific attitude to
patients when necessary. That is, we learnt to re-
member on occasions that if a patient is left to him-
self and to Nature he may get better, and if he gets
worse he goes down the line in a few hours to where
he may have better luck further on. In later times,
when over two thousand casualties would come
through a single ambulance station in twenty-four
hours, the scientific attitude became a necessary re-
quirement of the mind; and when the turn came to
some of us, in the destinies of war, to play the patient
ourselves, we recognized the scientific attitude m the
eyes of others with more misgivings, perhaps, but
without recriminations.

Patients who were marked Medicine and Duties re-
turned to their tmits, those who were admitted to hos-
pital were first entered with all proper detail in the
A and D book and were then directed to the pack
store where they left all but personal belongings, and

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

their clothes. The pack store was another of the con-
vent schoolrooms, witfi a map of La Patrie, if I re-
member aright, and another picture of The Sacred
Heart, that anatomy of melancholy, hanging upon its
walls. From the pack store they would walk to the
main hall of the schools to be received into the sick
ward, where big Sergeant Harry received them grave-
ly and again entered them up with all proper particu-
lars in his ward book. A stretcher bed, a pair of flan-
nel pyjamas, and a couple of army blankets awaited
them.

In the day time patients could stroll about, smoke
cigarettes, and sleep in the May sunshine. The little
vegetable gardens were planted with the greenest of
vegetables on the blackest of soils. The gravel courts
and paved yards were honey-combed underneath with
water tanks and cesspits. These lay side by side
and were often of vast extent. A ntmiber of ancient
pumps communicated with this under-wdrld. Hence
an ingredient of the old-world odor, and in this con-
nection we had reason to recall the remark of a famous
traveller: "The people of this land put statues of the
saints over their wells to protect them from the
pest, but since they dig middens alongside of them,
their prayers are not always answered."

Behind the convent buildings lay a fine orchard
where the wagons were packed and the transport
horses picketed. Here the A.S.C. men had flieir
bivouacks under the apple trees, here the blacksmith

THE CONVENT

labored at his little forge, and the orderly who steri-
lized blankets carried on his beneficent work at the
steam-heater. We had a legend that a spy had once
been apprehended from the orchard. He was ob-
served at the other side of the hedge ploughing the
same furrow again and again and listening to what the
army blankets on the hedge were telling each other
before they were put into the steam heater and ren-
dered silent

But the citadel of the convent was the house of
Madame H., who performed the duties of caretaker,
and whose parlor was entered from the convent yard.
She lived with odier little ladies all dressed in black
and all connected by family ties. Her kitchen and
parlor were used by us as a canteen. All day long
the making of coffee, the boiling of eggs, the serving
of men at the round table, the washing of dishes, the
scrubbing of floors, continued in these small apart-
ments. Yet at all times the place was neat and tidy
and the rails of the stove shone brightly. On the
wall of the parlor diere hung three pictures — Millet's
^Angelus," the portrait of an eminent cardinal, and
a lithograph of a battle in the suburbs of Paris in
1870. In the evening there was always a crowd of
men at the round table eating boiled eggs and petits
pains. The basket containing the petits pains had
often to be sent round a second or third time to the
boulangerie to be filled. We learnt our first lessons
in French at this table, and here a wit of our ambu-

FIELDS Al^D BATTLEFIELDS

lance had remarked, "An ceuf is as good as a feast."
If goodness, gentleness, and virtue could make a
duchess, Madame H, was such. She dressed in black
serge, she was short, her face was red with cooking,
yet she was truly dignified. The other ladies who
lived with her also wore black serge. They were no
shorter than she, indeed, one was quite tall and grac-
ious, but they were all secondary to Madame. When,
in her turn, she brought in the casserole or poured the
coffee, the procedure was different, it had more weight.
The sugar was placed on the table by her with more
empressemeni, and although she might utter no word,
the men at table felt impressed.

This dignity was never impaired by continual con-
tact with her customers, who came in at all hours of
the day and would often crowd round the stove and
make cooking very difficult. But her manners were
never disturbed and she had always her little joke.
There was no Englishman she cotdd not laugh at, but
no one ever laughed at her. Only after a hard day at
serving, after rising early and attending an early Mass,
she would joke less, but be more courteous than ever.
When she spoke to us, she always entmciated very
slowly and distinctly, as though she hoped by that
means to capture our slow understanding. In the
same hope she would repeat her phrases carefully to
us as though to an infant class. "Monsieur — ^a— deja
— eu — deux — ^petits — pains — Monsieur — aime — beau-
coup — les — ^petits — ^pains — ^bein — cuits."

THE CONVENT

These ladies and many hundreds of Frenchwomen
adopted the English soldier and spent their whole life
cooking, serving, washing and sewing for him. Many
did so as a means of livelihood, but many also for
quite imselfish reasons: and no one will ever know
what gentle affaires du coeur have lain hidden, among
a variety of motives, often perfectly concealed by a
frank friendship and concern. Madame herself had
had her weakness. The man she ever remembered had
been quartered at the convent schools some months
before, and on one occasion she asked me to translate
a miserable scrawl he had sent her. I had found great
difficulty in rendering into French the stereotyped
phrase with which he opened, "I hope you are in the
pink as it leaves me at present."

"J'espere que vous etes dans la rose "

"J'espere que vous vous rougissez comme il me
laisse "

I had finally to give up the attempt and adopt a base
paraphrase. But shall I ever forget the letter of
sweetness,^ wit and piety she addressed to him in
return? She wrote on every second line of the page
and desired me to insert the English. After that pne
letter of his, he sent her scarce anything but a field
post card, although on occasions his wife would write
to Madame in friendly terms.

At last the time came for us to leave Steenwerk, and
one evening we marched away along a southern road
under summer leaves. I did not see the little town

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

again for nearly a year, but then when the chance
came I called at the convent schools to revisit Madame
H. She received me as a guest and made profound
inquiries. Many ambulances had come and gone and
still her rotmd table was supplied with htmgry men.
She laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "Ce — Mon-
sieur — aime — ^beaucoup — ^les — ^pet — ^its — ^pains — ^bien —
cuits."

As she did so I realized again those strange early
sensations of our first weeks of active service, when
thoughts of home were still with us and the higher
savagery of war was not yet learnt. On leaving I
took occasion to inquire after the man whose letter I
had once translated. Madame stood in shadow at
the door. She laid her hand on her heart and spoke
politely, but without expression. He had not written
an3i:hing to her for a long while, and then it had been
only a field post card. Yes, she had had a letter from
his wife — "une lettre assez complaisante/' Evidently
he was forgetting.

She bade me farewell at the opened door, and her-
self gave me instructions how to cross the market
square.

O women of France, humble in estate yet proud and
mysterious, you who have by nature all the courtesies
of the human heart, who seem to leave by comparison
only appetites to other nations, how long shall we
remember lessons first learnt from you? You
have found in the English soldier a true quality of

THE CONVENT

purity, you have taken him to your heart and are re-
warded by "une lettre assez complaisante" from his
wife.

CHAPTER III

FESTUBERT

THE CHURCHYARD

••What age! What shattered earth! What blinded eyes
Of Heaven, as at a sight too sick to endure I
What more hath heart to hope, hath soul to lure I
Here Desolation in his kingdom dies.
Here men have wept, here prayed, here made surmise
Of God, and lol their bones lie naked, pure,
In ghastly resurrection premature,
'Neath yonder Christus pleading at the skies.
But Nature, equal-hearted to her kind —
How sways she here ? Look where yon shell-hole deep
Has made a grave for graves— you there shall find »
The twisted rose in bloom, blue larkspur peep,
Pale evening-primrose and convolvulus —
In token of indifference to us."

WHEN at a remote point of time we sliall look
back at the 191 5 front, some of us will think of
Ypres with its bath-rooms exposed to view on first
floors, some of the chocolate truffles to be bought in
Armentieres, some of the quarries and prairie of the
field of Loos, and some perhaps of Ploegsteert woods
with its graves and primroses.

But for myself I shall think first of harvest time at
Festubert.

FESTUBERT

Ypres was feared and hated, its spirit was wholly
evil. It was whispered that sentries on silent nights
had gone mad, listening to the slow dropping of bricks
in the deserted streets. The spirit of Armentieres was
conciliatory. Shells visited it respectfully, avoided
cake shops and left the active brewery in peace.

But Festubert was neither tragic nor burlesque. I
recall its whole nature as operatic. Scenes, actors,
costumes and situations were less in themselves than
the score to which they were set ; to the movement of
the stunmer breeze through the willows, the hamming
of aeroplanes, the pizzicato of bullets, the chattering
of swallows under deserted eaves, to the rich atmos-
phere of the land in harvest weather. The day seemed
all afternoon, the night a meeting of two twilights.
The whole was a quiet pastoral, to be followed at no
great interval by the Walpurgis Dance of Loos.

Festubert, like other historical sectors, had its tra-
ditional fateful secret, its chamel beyond the waving
reeds and over-grown apple trees. But even then it
was not often alluded to, and by now may have faded
from the recordless annals of the ranks. But a few
weeks before the time of which I write the Canadians
had made a famous charge through Festubert orchard,
and men still told each other the romantic story of
**Private" Hardy and of his bombing exploit

Our main dressing-station was situated at the point
where houses, though still inhabited, ceased to have
glass in the windows. It was a low one-storied build-

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

ing with a little garden in front of it where roses and
candytuft grew. The house consisted of a large room
used as a surgery and two smaller rooms opening out
of jt used for everything else. From this main dress-
ing-station we went forward every night to two ad-
vanced dressing-stations situated one at Festubert and
one at La Plantin. Most of our work was done at
night.

One afternoon I was treating the surgery with for-
malin to keep away the flies. Remarks and scraps of
conversation came through the door from the next
room where Staff-Sergeant Bill and Qiatham the dress-
er were at some leisurely work before the aftenioon
meal. Two walking cases had come down to us that
morning. Both were suffering from slight shell-shock.
One had a few cuts about the head. The other was not
wounded but appeared to be more unnerved than his
companion. By now they had sufficiently recovered to
sit in the next room and take an interest in passing
events. I heard the voice of Bill : "Youll be all right,
old flower, don't you worrit. By Qirise, he looks a
proper Sandy, don't he."

The patient thus addressed, muttered something
hopeful in reply, which led to a repetition of his story ;
of how "he and me" were standing in the queue for
breakfast, nineteen of them in all with nineteen mess-
tins waiting to be filled. Of how the shell — "sl bloody
big yen" — came too quick to dodge. Of how "he and
me" seemed to be all that was left of the party, and

FESTUBERT

in consequence had not felt like breakfast, and so had
eaten nothing all day.

I noticed that Sandy alone contributed to these nar-
ratives. The other patient scarcely spoke at all.

"Tea's ready," called Archy, one of the dressers, aft
he rushed in from the farmyard with the dixy. He
was a round-faced, excitable youth who loved argu-
ments. Tea-time was his hour.

For tea we sat round an old rickety table. The
party consisted of the two patients, Staff-Sergeant Bill,
Archy, Chatham the dresser, and myself.

"Bags," said Bill to me, "it's your turn up at Festu-
bert to-night, ain't it? Don't forget to bring them
water-bottles back, 'cause I'm told we're being re-
lieved to-morrow ; and while you're there don't forget
to look at that sewing-machine, it's beyond the church
to the right; you can't miss it, it lays in a bit of a
yard. It just lays there. It's worth your while to
see it."

"Why's he so interested in sewing-machines?" said
Chatham in a low voice. He was a pale, refined look-
ing man who suffered from deafness. He was busy
opening a jam tin for one of the patients.

" 'Cause it reminds him of home," said Archy mis-
chievously. "You mustn't blame him though — ^we

mustn't blame him — ^he's only a workin' lad "

Archy had to duck to avoid a heavy hand.

"So I am," said Bill, "and could eat three clerics
like you before breakfast. Don't talk to me of clerks —

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

sixteen shillings a week, bread and lard and a three-
inch blood> collar."

At this the two patients giggled. The patient called
Sandy had a bandage round his head which made his
yellow hair stick out in queer tufts, and his freckled
face was red from the heat; but he was rapidly re-
suming his good spirits.

Chatham, who was educated at Harrow and on all
occasions preserved his gentle manners, was drinking
his tea as though in a drawing-room. He now bent
over to Sandy and said, "Are you feeling better?
Yes — ^you were hit by a shell — ^yes. How was it?"
Whereat Sandy told his story with confidence for the
fourth time; and although Archy was shouting next
his working ear, Chatham pretended to hear it all, as
was his skilful custom.

"Subside, Archy, or go and have your tea with the
cook."

The other patient, who had not been wounded, re-
mained silent. His hands still shook and he seemed a
little shy. He was younger than his companion, his
face was childish and inexpressive. He had large
blue eyes and his chin had down upon it. We tried to
include him in the conversation. I suggested that
perhaps the shell was one of the new boomerang shells
which took back prisoners — Fritz's latest, and that
the seventeen unaccounted for might therefore be con-
sidered safe. I was sorry the moment I had spoken.

FESTUBERT

His face remained quite unemotional* but his eyes
filled with tears.

"I couldna' rightly say," he said.

We were all silent for a moment, and then Bill
banged his fist on the table and said, "Well, tnere was
some one lookin' after you, anyway. Wot I say is,
you be thankful for your luck, my boys, both of you."

Silence.

"Yes, father," said Archy, jumping out of arms'
reach.

"Not you, you kipper," said Bill savagely, "and you
get all them stretchers shifted when you've taken the
dixy back, and look sharp about it." But Bill was al-
ways at a disadvantage after a meal ; his fatherly in-
stincts then expanded and shone in his face, and for
a while the bully sergeant was submerged. Mean-
while Sandy had been talking to Chatham, and pres-
ently we were all listening.

"Have you heard about this, Bill?" I said — ^"an old
trench captured a while back from the Germans, where
there's still "

But Sandy broke in to continue his own story.

"I've never been there myself," he said. "We're
not allowed over there. They say officers only may
go and look in. . . . Of course, this is what I heard
— see. . . . It's not filled in yet — see . • . the old
trench — ^and there's an officer's dug-out there, and
four dead Fritzies still playing cards. ..."

"What-officers?"

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"Aye. Four officers, and they're all yellow from
lyddite. What they think is a lyddite shell must 'a
burst in the dug-out and stiffened them. Anyway
they're all yellow — faces, hands, uniform and all — ^and
the last card turned up is the ace of spades."

'•What were they playing, I wonder?"

"Don't know what they were playing, but there they
arc still sittin' round the table."

"Ow— bloody 'ell," said Bill.

"What's that?" said Archy, coming back into the
room and seeing every one's state of tension. But all
were silent a moment.

"Nothin'," said Bill, "and you get on with them
stretchers — only four Fritzies sat round a table, yellow
as 'ell and still playin' cards — ^now you fall on them
stretchers or I'll fall on you. ..."

"What? Where?" said Archy in an ecstasy of
curiosity, but he was ruthlessly shut up, protesting
and struggling, in the next room to sort his stretchers,
and Bill had his revenge.

He now bustled about, rubbing his hands and pre-
paring for the night's work. "Chatham," said he,
"see after Sandy's equipment and put him in the car
comfortable, itil be starting soon." Qiatham nodded.
We never knew whether he heard or divined his or-
ders, but he always carried them out.

Sandy's companion, who had not been wounded,
looked dumbly at Bill. What was to become of him?
Evidently he was not going to be allowed to accom-

FESTUBERT

pany his friend. Was he to go back to those trenches
at once? He did not speak, but this must have passed
through his mind. Bill went up to him. **You — ^111
speak to the officer about you. You'd better sleep here
the night and you'll be fit as a flea in the morning.
Give you a stretcher and blankets and youll get a good
night's rest."

Chatham, finding himself at my side, made one of
his low-voiced comments: "It's very hard on these
boys — ^they're new to the game — ^what? — ^yes, look at
him — he's a mere child ; of course he'd give his stars
for a wound. ..." After which he went up to
Sandy and began helping him with his equipment

About two hours later, in the gathering dusk, a little
party of us prepared to start for night duty at Festu-
bert. We fell in on the road in front of the garden.
There was a scent of hay and roses in the air. Bill
called the roll and reminded me again not to forget
to bring back the water-bottles and have a look at the
sewing-machine. I promised to do so, and we went
forward up the road, following a working party of
pioneers who were going up to the trenches for the
night. We took with us two stretchers and a pair of
wheels.

Several small houses stood along the road and flow-
ers survived in their gardens. In one of these houses
a woman stood half in and half out of her door and
watched us as we passed. Some clothes htuig out to

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

dry near her house. She took in washing for soldiers
and often had her little kitchen quite filled with clean
clothes hanging from the ceiling. Two days before^
this admirable woman had been busy ironing when
shells came over. They came every five minutes and
fell in a direct line for her house, each one nearer than
the last. When she considered they had approached
too near, she placed her irons on the stove and re-
tired to a neighboring kitchen at some distance down
the road. The last shell knocked some tiles oflF the
roof of her house. She waited for a while and then
returned to her irons, which were still keeping hot
on the stove, and continued her work. That was two
days ago. Now she stood half in and half out of her
door and watched us as we passed. First the men
with picks and shovels, then the men with stretchers
and surgical haversacks. A silent procession.

We soon passed the houses, and as we proceeded
the shell holes increased in number, some of them
forming small ponds. When we arrived at a certain
corner where the road forked, we halted for a while.
This place was the outpost of inhabited country.

The working party took the road to the right, we
went to the left. Our road had a notice-board over
it — Unsafe for troops in daylight. We went forward
in single file, and every man kept well in to the side of
the road without having to be told to do so. Every
one was silent at first. When a star shell went up
beyond the trees we halted, for the sniper has cats'

FESTUBERT

eyes. Occasionally bullets went through the leaves
of the willows over our heads with a noise of violin
strings. At a bend in the road a pump stood, without
a handle. We hurried past it. Pumps are often
marked points for snipers, and here a man had met
his death. Near by the aspen leaves shivered coldly :
then their shadows began to move and chased other
shadows over the earth. A star shell was going up.
We halted. I looked back to see who was nearest
the pump. Whoever he was, he was crouching down
very wisely in the long grass beside the road. The
shadows began to run back again to their rightful
owners. Darkness — ^and we started again.

Even without adventures the little journey always
ended very joyfully in the dug-out at Festubert. It
was a comfortable place lined with old barrels, each
barrel filled with earth. With the sacking let down
over the door and with two candles burning, the
place became a home. A mysterious land waited for
us outside, but inside all was ease, conversation, prep-
arations for sleep. The beady eyes of a rat peeped at
us from behind one of the barrels ; the shadows flick-
ered on the walls.

Tim and Jack, two Irish boys, were with me, and
the place as I recall it is much colored by their con-
versation. They were both idle by nature, but they
were without the common sensations of fear. Wher-
ever they were, they could always be found whisper-
ing and protesting together*

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"Saargeant/' said Tim, "d'ye kxiow what the Jocks
say when a shell comes over?"

"I do not."

"They swallow their tay quick and say, 'There's
another of yer whures of Babylon/ "

"Saargeant— d'ye know what the Micks say when
a shell comes over?"

"I do not."

"They all take a peep over the parapet and say,
'There's another bastard, be Jaysus.' "

"Saargeant," said Jack, "they say the Micks are on
the right of us now at Givenchy. They're a, fine
regiment, be Jee. I only wish I'd been a bit tallet attdS
I'd been wid them. They say they^rgcft wild the
other day wid nothin' doiih'^ ^ttki Went over to Fritz
without their oflScers and murdered the front line of
'em and come back again, and they had to send a
bloody big' officer wid a gold cap all the way from
London to pacify them, they were that wild."

"Saargeant," said Tim, "d'yer see that wire mat-
tress in the comer. Yell be a brave man to sleep on
that all night, for I can hear the lice doin' physical
exercises upon it."

At this the pair became convulsed with giggles.
They repeated the witticism several times, broke off
to listen to the knocking of the bullets outside, then
fell to giggling again.

While one of us kept watch, the others slept. I
drew out my pipe, a recent one from England, and

FESTUBERT

examined it carefully. Outside the knock, knocking
of bullets on broken rafters continued monotonously.
I admired the shape of my pipe and conceived how
exquisitely it would brown in a few weeks. I filled
it leisurely.

A step approached. One of our officers pulled
aside the sacking and looked in. He blinked a little
in the candle-light.

"All right in here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Everything's quiet to-night — ^youll not have much
to do. Any cases that come, send them straight to the
dressing-station. And if you send a messenger, send
two together, it's safer about these roads. Good-
night."

"Good-night, sir."

I smoked my pipe and thought : "Now he is going
down the road we came up, and he may get to a little
dinner by eight o'clock or he may not. He is a good,
straight young fellow, little more than a medical stu-
dent. . . . When did he join us? Right at the be-
ginning of things. And he's been tr3ring to grow a
moustache ever since. . . .

"Seems to think a bit, too— thinks about us. And
didn't he once stick up a picture on the walls of his
billet — of the Kaiser turning away from Christ on
the Cross, and asked me what I thought of it. Asked
my opinion as one young man to another because he
wanted to know, not for something to say. I like

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

him for that. What odd things one remembers ! . • •

"Of course, if a medical can survive the priestcraft
of his profession added to the autocratic training of
the temporary ccmimission, he is a man indeed. But
what a disappointment many of them have been. Once
objects of our admiration. Young soldier doctors,
masters of the one indispensable profession, schooled
in a hard school, used to the aspect of suffering,
worthy through their knowledge to exercise real
authority. . . . Not the truth. . . .

"Or damned medical militarists, without imagina-
tion, with natural sympathies eliminated, patronizing
their patients, despising the men under them as non-
combatants.. . . Again not the truth.

"But, by Jove, don't they rely on their profession —
in whatever situation? . . . Yet what a profession!
The one which alone amid the chaos of others con-
tinues to develop, and consistently for good, alone in
Europe. What a fabric, yet what a conspiracy, what
capacity for inspiration, for cruelty, for service, for
tyranny, it engenders! ... And at what a height,
when all is said, the level of humanity stands in it!"

After two hours I waked Tim and told him to watch
while I slept, but presently I was wide awake again
at the sound of a step outside.

"Is this Festubert dressing-station?" said a voice.

"Yes."

"We have a stretcher case at the top of Willow
Poad."

FESTUBERT

"Then we can take the wheels/'

Jack and Tim came out sleepily and we followed
the messenger, who talked loudly, whistled and lit a
cigarette.

"It's only to show off before us R.A.M.C. men/'
whispered Tim, and the two began whispering and
giggling together as they trundled the wheels.

We turned to the left and emerged from between
hedges on to a kind of causeway that ran out to-
wards the front. The road had once been banked up
but was now bitten away on each side by shells, so
that we followed only a narrow zigzag path. The
flare lights of both sides went up in front of us and
the chill noises of shells and night volleys surrounded
us. In daytime Willow Road was not used. A com^
munication trench ran parallel with it. Even on a
moonless night we seemed exposed to hundreds of
malignant eyes who watched us from behind the bleak
stumps of willow trees and even climbed the sky to
peer down upon us. The messenger in front con-
tinued to whistle and to glow his cigarette in an osten-
tatious manner. When a sniper's bullet came be-
tween us I felt irritated at his vanity, knowing that on
such occasions it is seldom the fool who pays for his
own folly.

On reaching the trench the road stopped. We
found the patient on a stretcher taking leave of his
friends. Three of them stood around him in their
great-coats, while a fourth walked up and down as if

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

counting the moments. The patient seemed shaken
and would not leave go of their hands. "I'm real
sorry to be leaving you, boys. I am indeed," and he
began to weep. "There, stop your greeting," said
the man who was walking up and down; "ye'U be
all right when ye get to Glasgow, and remember us
to Sauciehall Street."

' We did not move him from the stretcher he was
on, but left a closed stretcher with the N.C.O. in
charge, and placed the patient carefully on the pair
of wheels. "I'm no for leaving you and to go among
strangers," he moaned as we wheeled him away, feel-
ing we were but instruments of his fate. "Good-
night. God bless you," a voice called after him.
We continued our way back, carefully threading the
shell holes and stealing glances at our patient's face
by the fitful light of the flares. We brought him
down to Bill at the main dressing-station. An hour
later we were back again in our dug-out in Festubert.
We slept.

Have you ever sat all day in the British Museum
and contemplated those peculiar Chinese pictures that
are painted on long rolls? You sit at a deep drawer
and pull out one roll after another. Perhaps you are
half way through one of them. You began at the be-
ginning, and as you proceed you unroll in front of you
and roll up behind. The little picture remains the

PESTUBERT

same size but continually changes as you go forward.
You have begun perhaps on a rocky path and have
wound with it over bridges, round mountains, through
deep woods and emerged upon the shore of a lake.
Plains, hills, rivers, storms of driving rain, night and
its stars, little villages, armed hordes, boats and ships
sailing in the sun, you have passed by in this manner.
Suddenly, without any reason, the roll comes to an
end. There is a little square of writing in the comer
which doubtless, if it could be read, would explain a
great deal. But you cannot read the mystery. You
hold the roll in your hand a moment, then drop it into
the deep drawer and pull out another.

Such is active service.

When I came to myself out of a gulf of sleep and
went out of the dug-out into the street of Festubert,
I knew that another quite different roll had begun to
unfold. The ground was the same we had trod the
night before, but all else had changed.

It was half-past four in the morning and an early
light of considerable beauty prevailed. There was
light without shadow. The presence of the sun could
be felt rather than seen. There seemed no sound,
smell, touch anywhere in consciousness; only sight.
"Thus it might seem to be newly dead," I thought.

'the knocking of bullets had ceased. I stood on a
little eminence and looked beyond the ruins. Every-
where the hatred of the night was over. In the
trenches the infantry were thinking of rum. The

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

machine-gun men were cleaning their guns, the snip-
ers had returned to their lairs to sleep.

Silence, everywhere.

I crossed to the ruined church and entered. A fine
old Louis XIV bell had fallen through the tower and
lay on a heap of brick dust. It had a very delicate
ornamental band engraved round it. Although
scratched and obscured, I could perceive the grace and
vitality of the design.

"How many tocsins have you rung in your time?"
I thought. "Rung how many new-old ideas into
the world which each tocsin and among them one very
explosive and world-shaking which has, alas, now
shaken you down from your tower.*'

But it had not deserved the last insult offered to
it by savage men. Chips had been broken from it, and
some one had left a pick leaning against it for the
benefit of souvenir hunters.

I spent some time in the churchyard, in a land of
still desolation. The place was so silent that I was
startled by my own footsteps. The graves had been
buried or broken by shells, but nature, with hands
pious or indifferent, had covered them again with
rambling roses, with larkspur, convolvulus and even-
ing primroses. One large shell-hole was a little gar-
den in itself.

Then I remembered the water-bottles and returned
to the sleepers in the dug-out. We shouldered our
belongings and started out for the main dressing-sta-

FESTUBERT

tion. Gaily down the same road we marched, know-
ing the snipers were asleep. Its aspect now was
strangely different. On each side lay vast fields of
self-grown grain, surging against the tall hedges, and
lifting the marguerite and the scabies higher than it-
self. Broken farms lay isolated in the rich wilder-
ness or half covered in the overgrowth of their own
orchards. The swamps where the aspen grew and
where the water-fowl flapped in the rushes, the little
lanes leading to unknown places, the airy silence over
all contributed to a scene that lulled and provoked the
senses.

A cat ran across the road in front of us. In these
regions a daring criminal might lurk secure against all
but his own conscience.

We rounded the bend, we passed the pump, we
passed the notice-board at the comer. The sprays of
the green oats nodded to us as we went, and pres-
ently the wild harvest seemed to mingle with cultiva-
tion.

We passed an inhabited house, then another. The
sun's early rays came through tlie forks of the trees
and sent our shadows before us. A man in a blue
cap was already at work in a field behind one of the
houses.

"Look at the Frenchy, be Jee," said Tim.

"He*s home on leave from the front," said Jack; "he
came two days ago."

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"The devil 1 And that's the way he spends his
leave."

"Thus do the French own their own soil," I thought

"Breakfast, boys !" said Tim as we reached the gate
of the dressing-station.

"Damn ! I've forgotten to look at that sewing-ma-
chine."

But the next few hours were only an interval in
a journey. The road and the harvest land claimed
us that day. The detachment were returning to camp
and we continued down the road, leaving Festubert
further and further behind. Rain fell at first. We
plodded through the mud with out water-proof sheets
flung over shoulders and pack. Once I looked up, and
we were passing through Bethune. The rain dripped
heavily from the avenue trees down on to the sand-
bags that protected basement windows. When I
looked up again Bethune was behind us, the road was
dry and white again and wound uphill past a tower.
My faculties returned. The harvest again surrounded
us. It was wet and shining, unfolding gradually be-
fore us and growing wider and vaster. We came
abreast of the tower and passed it. Our road led us
on through a sea of com to a distant prospect of
trees, standing far off like a green shore. At great
intervals we saw a group of women wearing handker-
chiefs on their heads. They swayed their bodies with
the movement of the sickle or bent over the sheaves.

FESTUBERT

On our left a reaper drove his machine slowly down
the flank of a long crop and we had lost sight of his
head before he came to the turn. Here the com stood
over us, and looking into it we could see the submerged
blue of cornflowers. The harvest was so great and
the laborers so few we said the half would be wasted.
But further on the tide had ebbed and lay sheaved in
neat piles as though by unseen hands. Then again
the waving billows swished in our ears and from the
comer of my eye I perceived a large poppy standing,
arterial red, above the gold. Here was as much mys-
tery, as much beauty, as hung over that early morning
wilderness where our journey had begun.

Onward through the golden sea we went, and still
onward.

Then a halt was called.

We sat in a row, luxuriously in the long soft grass
at the side of the road. One man sat in the ditch op-
posite, chewing a piece of grass. I stood on a little
bank and looked over the heads of the others.

"France, was this France. The name that had stood
for a kingdom in the mind. And this was her form,
her outward semblance, that had inspired so many
painters, that stood a shining plain behind the minds
of her great writers. And now she comforted us.

Strange that she should suddenly reveal herself
thus. France, that *^idSe des idSes who now granted a
handfuls of Britons the most elemental of all com-
forts — ^the breath and beauty of her soil."

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

Turning, I spied over a low hedge a young woman
with a baby seated in the center of a large field.
Around her far and wide the com was cut. She was
resting from her toil, and with strong sleeveless arms
she held her baby above her head and laughed in its
face. Twice or thrice she lifted it up thus and the
child kicked and laughed in reply. There were no
other harvesters in sight. These two alone in the
landscape kept up their little noonday revel.

They seemed the spirits of the harvest, surprised in
their benevolence, but whose labors we were not per-
mitted to see.

Their laughter followed us down the road

CHAPTER IV

BESIDE THE CANAL

''I love a strong and manly familiarity and conversa-
tion : a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and
vigor of its communication ... : it is not vigorous and
generous enough if it be not quarrelsome, if it be civilized
and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock." —
Montaigne.

ONE afternoon a detachment of twelve, who had
been marching leisurely since noon, came to a
halt on a lonely stretch of road opposite a small stables.
Bill, as N.C.O. in charge of the party, still stood on his
feet in the middle of the road, when the remainder of
us sat down with a sigh on the bank. Bill stared at
the place for a while and said —

"I suppose this is it. I don't know/'

Our G.S. wagon came slowly after us along the
road we had come. It was a warm afternoon in
late August, the horse sweated and the wheels creaked
on the gravel road. The A.S.C. driver drew up in a
half-hearted way before reaching us.

"Anyway there's the canal," said Bill, sitting down
beside me.

A butterfly came towards us across the stubble

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

fields. The landscape shiiiimered in the heat We sat
very comfortably on the bank, hoping the problem
would never be solved, and that we should sit there
forever.

Our G.S. wagon was laden with tubs and with a
portable copper for heating water, also with as many
canvas buckets as Bill and I had been able to collect
from various quarters. We were here for the pur-
pose of establishing and running small brigade baths.

That morning in camp Sergeant-Major Jack himself,
burnished to the last button and glinting in the sun,
had stood before me with an air of command. He
was tnaking his rounds and I had run against him. ''It
will be your duty/' he said, "to provide the water
supply. It will be a nice job. The Colonel will visit
the place in a day or two, and you start in half an
hour/'

Bill got up restlessly and looked down the road.

"Here's Sammy," he said. Our officer was ap-
proaching with a key in his hand. He said nothing but
tried the key in the door. It fitted, and he went in
followed by Bill. How anno)ring — ^now the problem
was solved and we should soon have to unload the
G.S. wagon and do all sorts of fatiguing things.

As our life had for a long time past consisted in
moving at frequent intervals from one spot to another,
we had long since become expert at judging the per-
sonality of resting-places. Some were at once exas-
perating and some at once friendly. Some were in-

BESIDE THE CANAL

different at first and revealed their advantages by
degrees. Some were treacherous, with an air of hospi-
tality giving way to bleakness and melancholy on fur-
ther acquaintance. Some, on the other hand, appeared
to console, to do their best for us at every turn. What
would this be like, I wondered, gazing at the bit of a
building covered by a single tiled roof, and at the little
pent-house beside it.

We were not long in deciding.

The place appeared inviting. It was shaded by
the tall poplar trees that grew along the banks of the
canal. Even as we labored at unloading, a cool breeze
sprang up and rustled the leaves above us. The un-
packing appeared to be complete in no time, the
cheese and the bacon stored in a dry spot, and sleeping-
room found satisfactorily for every one. The cook's
fire lit at once, and, with no recollection of fatigue, we
were presently all sitting with a mess-tin of hot, sweet
tea between our legs.

After tea some of us went to the nearest farm and
returned with news of eggs for breakfast in unlimited
numbers. Others explored the neighboring estamin-
ets.

One by one, as the dusk advanced, the men climbed
the ladder to the loft under the roof and lit a candle
to write, or turned in between their blankets.

"This was a fine place," they said.

Next morning our officer was in a good temper, and
after breakfast great sanitary and engineering schemes

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

were begun. The stables were washed, scoured and
whitewashed; and afterwards the tubs were set out
on the clean brick floors.

The embankment of the canal rose above the level
of the surrounding country. A dry ditch ran at the
foot of the embankment and the stables backed on to
the ditch. This ditch was evidently designed by Provi-
dence to take the waste water from the baths.

At that time small filter beds were le dernier cri
in sanitary circles and we determined not to be be*
hind the times. The ditch had no fall in one direction
more than in another. We therefore formed a large
settling pool in the ditch by means of two mud dams
twelve foot apart, and when the waste water col-
lected in it above a certain height, sluiced it out over
two roughly- formed filter beds, one at each end. By
this means 'we conceived ourselves as maintaining the
high standard of sanitation of the British Army in
the field.

The next problem was the water supply. Some
kind of an aqueduct was obviously required to convey
water from the canal across the embankment and
over the ditch to the stables.

My eye had already observed that the stables-roof
possessed an eaves gutter. ^^Improznsation/' 1 mur-
mured. A word that covers a multitude of sins.

When at the Day of Judgment I stand before the
throne and the recording angel comes to the first three
years of the great war, I have no doubt I shall then

BESIDE THE CANAL

find myself by a process of moral selection in the com-
pany of Peter G., Corporal Macktavish, Private De-
cies. Sergeant B. of the 29th and many other amateur
sanitary scientists of the 9th Division. And when the
celestial sergeant-major, with a pair of crossed cherubs
on his sleeve and a long list of crimes in his hand,
asks us, "what the angel" we've got to say for our-
selves, we shall reply with one voice ^'Improvisation/*

And if the magic of that word fails in heavenly
circles and "escort, accused and evidence" are marched
forthwith to the infernal incinerators, we shall at least
have the comfort of finding the cooks have arrived
there before us ; and see them swimming about in the
grease pits they would never take the trouble to use
properly in a previous existence.

That eaves gutter was removed from the roof and
was placed on wooden stays across the ditch, the lower
end in close proximity to Joe and his boiler. The
upper end communicated with a small trench cut
across the top of the canal embankment about six
inches deep. But the gravel tow-path, eight foot in
width, formed a barrier. How was that to be crossed?
Improvisation again! The iron rain-water pipe that
had once communicated with the eaves gutter was
made to communicate with it once more, but this time
in a horizontal fashion rather than a perpendicular.
The pipe was buried across the tow-path and covered
with a stout board to protect it from the wheels of
vehicles. One end formed a funnel mouth over the

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

canal, the other end gave into tbe trench. The aque-
duct was thus con^kte. One man widi a bucket on
the canal bank could now do as much work as the
whole detachment running backwards and forwards.

On trial, however, the water flowed unevenly and
scoured out too much earth from the trench. This
was remedied by widening the trench into a small basin
at the lower end and putting a grid at intervals along it.

When die Colonel arrived he inspected the work,
outwardly stem and critical, but inwardly benevolent.

"To-morrow," said he, "two companies of Highland-
ers are coming for good warm baths. Have you
plenty of soap?"

"Yes, sir," said Bill.

"May I see all this at work," he said, indicating the
water supply. This command, couched as a request,
was a terrible incentive. How we prayed that all
might go well. The weak part of the system was the
human being with the bucket at the canal side, whose
duty it was to dip and pour into the f imnel as steadily
and rapidly as possible. At that moment I dreamed
wildly of constructing a Persian water-wheel out of
jam tins, but at present the human was the only ma-
chine possible. If he became lost in thought, or if an
interesting barge passed by, the water supply might
fail. I selected a steady, reliable man, and he went
to work with a canvas bucket. His labors were not
visible from where the Colonel stood down by the
stables. We waited breathlessly. Presently we heard

BESIDE THE CANAL

a little swirling noise and the water dashed out of the
spout on to the gutter and flowed thence over the ditch
to Joe, who filled his buckets as fast as he could empty
them into his boiler.

We watched for a moment or two. Proud mo-
ments long to be remembered. The Colonel remained
grave, but we knew he was greatly impressed. He
never failed to be impressed by the simplest mechanical
contrivance, deeming it little less than miraculous.

A short amiable conversation followed, and as a
mark of high approbation he granted Bill and myself
each a pipeful of Maghalesberg tobacco out of the
small canvas bag he always carried with him.

Colonels, bishops, judges and admirals can do such
things without incurring loss of dignity.

Then he rode away gallantly on his horse.

During meal-times we paid much attention to the
barges, as they passed. They came up between the
poplar trees and crossed our field of vision, majestic-
ally and with incredible slowness. Sometimes a large
Red Cross barge painted gray would pass pulled by
one steam tug in front, and pushed by another behind,
while a hospital nurse oflf duty reclined in a canvas
chair on deck.

The canal narrowed to a bottle neck at a swing
bridge, which occurred every mile or so. When a
Red Cross barge came to one of the bridges all the
children of the neighborhood rushed shrieking to the
bridge and began swinging from it, kicking it and

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

working handles until it lifted clear ; after which they
all hung over the rails and abutments in order to look
on deck. Then if the hatches were open you could
catch a glimpse within of a neat row of beds with
hospital charts hung over them, of bandaged heads on
the pillows, of a brilliantly polished sterilizer on a
table.

But for ourselves, we were more attracted by the
ordinary black barge following its couple of stiff
horses at the end of a long tow-rope. A dark-haired,
kerchiefed woman stood at the tiller as a rule, and a
family of children fell up and down the companion
ladder. A little boat trailed behind beside the huge
rudder. We shouted to each family and asked them
for their little boat pour souvenir, and they shouted
gaily to us in return. But they seemed unwilling to
grant our request. Every barge had its brasses pol-
ished to perfection, and in many of them two bay trees
grew in tubs immediately in front of the companion
hatch, and a small brightly-painted barrel was placed
between them.

We told each other that that barrel contained rum.

"Apres la guerre," said Bill, **I shall have a barge on
this canal with one of them little rum-barrels and a
couple of good Engliish 'orses and treat 'em well. Yes,
my boy, that's the life for me."
"And me," I said.

One fresh fine morning we stood in our breakfast
place in a recess of the tow-path, having nearly com-

BESIDE THE CANAL

pleted a very excellent breakfast. The sun flashed on
the water of the canal and shone dull gold on the stub-
ble lands beyond. Bill, well lined and smoking his
pipe, was more than ever at the mercy of the better
part of his nature, and I was finishing a mug of
real sergeant-major tea, hot, sweet and strong, but not
tasting of yesterday's stew. The wood fire still
smouldered between us.

A pair of horses passed behind us along the tow-
path and a long rope followed them. We knew that
before long a barge would make its deliberate appear^-
ance.

"There's some cooks," said Joe, "who take all the
heart out of a good bit of bacon. Now Alf had it
just right this morning. ..."

But instead of continuing this interesting topic we
all turned and stared at a figure who appeared on the
tow-path. He was an old hunched Frenchman carry-
ing a whip and moving forward very slowly.

"Bong jour," we all cried in chorus, for we felt so
happy that morning.

The bargee smiled and nodded.

"Damn it," said Bill, "give 'im some tea," and one
of us quickly dipped a mug in the dixy and stepped
forward, while Bill, hands in pockets, beamed on him
equally with the sun.

He received the mug with profuse expressions of
gratitude yet with the dignity of an old aristocrat.
He smiled and drank. "Enchante," I murmured.

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

He waved the mug and drank again.

"That's a drop of good tayanglay you've got there,"
said Bill in a loud voice as though the Frenchman
was deaf. "Tay anglay — ^bong. Tay franqais no
bloody bong.*' But Bill stopped, open-mouthed, for
the Frenchman bowed to. him. We laughed. He
handed back the mug, turned and acknowledged us
all with a look of complaisance^ inclined his head to
Bill a second time, and passed along the tow-path.

Then the barge at the other end of the rope began
to pass by.

"Seems a good old joker," said Joe.

"From what I can see of them," said Bill, "these
Frenchies are a good sort — some of 'em. I was havin'
a conversation with that old farmer chap who has that
bit of an estaminet up by the bridge, last night."

"What about, Bill?"

"Well he told me as how he'd 'ad three wives."

"Could he speak English?"

"No more than what I can speak French."

"What else did he tell you?"

Bill took his pipe out of his mouth and spoke grave-
ly and shyly.

'TEe said he'd 'ad no children by the first two wives,
but it seems he's had two by the last. He were a right
good sort. Bags. You know. Like me and you. He
'ad a bad pain all day yesterday from what I could .
make of it, so I promised to bring him something for
it this evenin'. You come along too, will you. You

BESIDE THE CANAL

can speak their lingo. It's no good ; I can't speak it."

I promised to accompany him, and we fell to dis-
cussing a train of artillery horses that were filing
along the opposite bank of the canal on their way to
be watered.

That afternoon a company of Jocks were coming
for baths. In the morning I determined to complete
the shower bath, previously designed out of two oil
drums. One oil drum had been perforated at the
bottom by Dilke, our master metal-worker, and this I
fixed rigidly in the bath-house below the ceiling joists.
The other drum was arranged to pull up and down by
means of a block and tackle and tip water into the per-
forated drum. I was arranging this carefully, and as
I gazed at the ceiling I became aware of two scoffers
who stood near by.

"He's always got some wee dodge," said the first.

"What's he up to now?" said the second.

"A shower bath," I said severely ; "you've not heard
of them in Scotland yet?"

"Naw," said the first, "explain. By Chrise, he's a
learned Wully."

"A shower bath is a frisson/* I began.

"Yer right there — it's that — ^we have them at hame
— ^and if them drums come down on a naked man he'll
be fricaseed right enough."

"They'll not come down," I said hotly; "and if
you've nothing to do, allow me to find you some-
thing. • . . Fill this with water — take these two

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

buckets." The two scoflfcrs worked well, though
tongues wagged and terrible results were prophesied,
and by the midday meal the shower bath was com-
plete.

The Jocks arrived in good spirits. They were in
charge of a very young subaltern who walked in a
lonely way up and down the tow-path while they were
at their orgies, or stood still and watched them rather
enviously.

"Undress in 'ere," said Bill, entering the pent-house,
followed by the N.C.O. in charge of the bathing party,
followed by the party itself, and his voice emerged
somewhat stifled. . . . "Undress in 'ere and pro-
ceed with your towels into the bath-house. There's
eight tubs and two to share a tub — ^that's sixteen at a
time. Soap provided but not clean shirts after."

When they had undressed they ran out of one door
and into another shouting and waving their towels.
The water supply worked well, and ran merrily over
its aqueduct to the bucket-fillers, who were ceaselessly
at work emptying and refilling the tubs. Joe kept his
boilers hissing and bubbling and dispensed one bucket
of boiling water to each tub.

Another man of our staff had a large yard-brush
with which he strode up and down the brick floor of
the bath-house urging the rising tide of soapy water
towards its outlet and cracking jokes with the bathers.
He was the sardonic individual who had scoffed at, and
labored upon, my shower bath in the morning — a

BESIDE THE CANAL

Scot himself and pleased now to be in the naked com-
pany of brither Scots. "He'll discover a relation here
or I'm much mistaken," I thought.

Before half an hour had elapsed he discovered an-
other man from Ecclefechan who turned out to be
the third cousin of his mother, sitting in the end tub
on the right, and the two became lost in a loud dis-
cussion on family affairs. The cousin sat on the edge
of his tub scrubbing his chest in a leisurely manner,
and Macdavies stood over him with his yard-brush,
both far away in Ecclefechan, while the tide of soapy
water rose higher and higher over the floor.

"Get on with it. Mack," I cried to him at length.

"Here's ma cousin," he called back in an injured
tone.

The sun shone in upon the bathers through the
steam. Their pink bodies ran up and down splashing
the white-washed walls to the ceiling. Two came
clasping each other round the neck for a shower bath.
I pulled the rope and a cascade of bright drops fell
upon them. They shrieked and danced. Others
rushed up. The shower bath was filled and emptied
several times ; and some of the bathers ran to the canal
to have a swim. Our men continued to run back and
forth with canvas buckets, while Bill smoked his pipe,
shouted to every one, and busily entered numbers in a
note-book.

When all was over the bathing-party fell in on the
road and marched back in high good humor to their

FIEtDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

We sat smoking in silence, and when the old man
entered with the soil on his boots he nodded to us in
a friendly way, but the silence of the room remained
unbroken. I saw at once why Bill had taken to him.
He was a fine old man, still upright under his years.
His face was lined and furrowed and of a color re-
sembling his suit of corduroys. It expressed infinite
patience but without the beaten look ; moreover, it was
familiar among human faces as the oak is f amilar in
a landscape, and had something reassuring about it.

He wore an old ring on his finger. As he moved
slowly across the floor, the room appeared less sordid,
less poverty-stricken. The two women sitting to-
gether addressed to him a few remarks. The older
woman poked the stove and motioned us to draw
closer round it. She handed to me the bowl of coffee
and milk she had prepared.

The old man after wandering round the room drew
up beside Bill's chair and began describing his illness
of yesterday, occasionally looking across to me for
help in an explanation. He had very blue, guileless
eyes, expressing at the moment concern and sorrow
over the S)rmptoms he rehearsed for us. But Bill,
smoking and looking grave, understood nearly as much
of his patois as I did.

Bill said, "Seems like rheumatics or summat; I
reckon it's the damp got into your bones. I got like
that myself — seems like a chill on the stomach, don't
it. Now when you feel it come on again you take

BESIDE THE CANAL

these," Here Bill took out the Dover's Powders, and
at once every one was interested and began to talk.
The old man handed the tablets round and thanked us
gravely. Then once more silence fell.

We smoked quietly for a while.

"There's something wrong with that child," said
Bill to me at length. "Piccannin malade?" he inquired
sympathetically. The woman with the shawl moved
and showed us the child's white, immobile face and
fixed eyes. But though she looked hopefully at Bill
she said nothing.

"Looks to me paralyzed," said Bill.

**Is its father at the war?" I inquired, but the wo-
man with the shawl shook her head.

"They don't know who its father is," said Bill.

The lamp was now lit and the light fell upon the
little circle of us, on the aproned knees of the women,
on the noble face of the old man. The sick child
stared fixedly at the flame.

"Vous beaucoup piccanin?" said the older woman to
Bill.

"Me kat piccannin," said Bill, holding up four
fingers. "That's to say I 'ad kat, but they're dead
now. . . . Bags, explain to 'em, will you?"

I hesitated. "Les enfants de Monsieur sont
morts. ..."

But Bill broke in. "I 'ad four extraordinary fine
uns. They're dead now, so I don't like to think on 'em ;
but they were that extrzordinary fine and fat. I had

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

ihem took naked and they was all the same, no wrist
nor ankle, only one wrinkle. But I cati't abear to
think oh 'em."

Then the woman with the shawl spoke, and as she
did so rocked the child gently in her arms. She spoke
in patois and was evidently trying to explain what
was the matter with the child. The woman beside
her joined in and seemed to prompt her, but she did
not look at us as she spoke. I could hardly follow
what they said, and turned inquiringly to Bill. "It had
a fall or something," said he; "one of mine began
that way. Oh, it makes you feel right bad inside to
see them suflFering, and they can't tell you what's
wrong."

"How much does it weigh?" I asked.

"Weigh!" said Bill fiercely, "I don't hold with this
weighing week in week out. One week perhaps the
child won't weigh what it aughter and then the par-
ents get fretting and send for the doctor, and he says
there ain't nothing wrong but they will 'ave it there is,
never mind what nobody says. . . . It's a wonder
some kids grow up at all."

At this the old man got up and began wandering
about the room again. He spoke and gesticulated,
pointing several times over his shoulder with his clay
pipe. I listened and watched for the least expression
on his features; his eyes were in shadow. "Puis se
vont en guerre," he repeated several times. I caught
his meaning at last.

BESIDE THE CANAL

"What's he say?" said BiU.
"When they do grow up they go to the wars. He
says he hasn't heard from his son since September

I9I4-"

"My last died a few months since," said Bill. "I
got leave from the division to go and see the missus,
but I didn't see the child alive."

The old man was still walking aimlessly about the
room, putting his gnarled fingers into his pipe. "Puis
se vont en guerre," he repeated.

Bill became lost in thought. The old man sat down
and then got up again. He quietly took away Bill's
glass and filled it for him, replacing it at his elbow.

One of the women coughed.

"They say they have a child up in the front line
fomewhere," I said, "and that it goes over to Fritz
and comes back again. They entice it over. They
say a sergeant found it in Ypres, but I don't hardly
believe it."

Bill continued to stare at the stove.

"How many barges pass in a day now?" I asked the
old man.

"Peut-etre cinq," he replied, holding up the fingers
of one hand.

"And how many avant la guerre?" I asked.

"Peut-etre vingt," he replied — "vingt," and held up
both hands twice.

At parting we were not allowed to pay for our

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

drinks but were treated as guests. As we returned by
the tow-path through the dark, Bill, who had raised
his glass to his ancient friend, turned to me and said,
"Well, I quite enjoyed that evening, Bags, didn't you?
You can see he's a good old stick, can't you — ^a proper
good old man. And he knows summat."

"Yes," I said, "but I think old people arc difficult to
understand.''

CHAPTER V

WALPURGIS' DANCE

*He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes nbove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know security
Is mortals' chiefest enemy.**

Macbeth.

ON the evening of September 24, 1915, a little
group of R.A.M.C. orderlies left behind them the
last houses of the mining village and prepared to cross
the wide fields that lay beyond. At certain points they
stopped, and one man of the group would bend down
and stick a little notice-board into the ground. The no-
tice-boards had a directing arrow upon them, and bore
the significant words, Walking Wounded. They were
placed at cross paths and at other points where direc-
tions were uncertain. These men were marking a
route. Their strange mission drew from them no
comment, provoked no forebodings: they had been
well trained. But on reaching the open, so fine a
prospect faced them that one and all paused ia ad-
miration.

Before them was the wide French plain in the ebb
of daylight. In the west the sun had built himself an

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

angry palace of smouldering cloud and from within
seemed to strive against his setting.

In the east a perfect rainbow shone clear, striding
the world. Between these two opposites the whole
earth seemed but to minister to the skies.

On our left a pyramid of slag of great size tapered
upwards, yet it served only to give such scale to the
scene as the human figure gives to a cathedral. The
plain with its distant towers and spires vanished into
mystery and insignificance. A great high-road with
its avenue of feathery trees ran forward to challenge
the horizon, but in its turn vanished also. The eye
would not follow it beyond the first cloud bars above
it. The sky claimed all. It seemed as if those familiar
phenomena that mask unknown .powers were about
to speak. The imagery of Nature was stressed. There
are moments when the supernatural has short but com-
plete sway over all. In the west the sun was pos-
sessed of devils. Cloud-shapes and smoke added to
his torture and magnificence. In the east, over the
silent battle-lines, so calm a gateway shone that the
rainbow and its message of peace occurred simultane-
ously to the eyes and minds of all of us.

Countless aeroplanes with wings twice lit passed in
and out of this gateway from sunlight to starlight and
back again. Indifferent grey clouds had their place in
comers, and everywhere aloft forms of all conceivable
emotions laughed, crouched and wept.

The guns which had thundered for days were silent^

WALPURGIS' DANCE

a strange quiet hung on earth» but the sky instead was
a battlefield. The secret of so much stood half-re-
vealed that it was no wonder we remained spellbound.
We knew a battle would be fought on the morrow.
We dared not guess the result. But here, perhaps, the
result was already decided. The aspirations and lusts
of dead generations were here. Here the crimes of
nations. Here long- forgotten seeds brought to har-
vest, age-long ghosts striving with ghosts, old acquies-
cences, old follies, vanities of peoples, prophecies of
statesmen and poets long dust, all whatsoever of the
terrible dead that will not die, here risen and come to-
gether for judgment.

Very early next morning the walking wounded be-
gan to come down the path we had marked out for
them. They came down from the dressing-Stations
along the interminable communication trenches to a
certain sinister cross-roads situated between Cambrin
and Vermelles, where their brethren on stretchers lay
waiting. At this little Mecca medical orderlies were
loading the hurrying ambulance cars day and night.
Both shells and rain fell at intervals, and the men on
stretchers moaned as they waited hour after hour : for
the ambulance cars were taxed to the uttermost.

The walking wounded hurried on down the road to
the mining village where women watched them pass-
ing in twos and threes. They crossed the open fields
beyond and came to the Bethune road where the horse
vans and lorries waited for them under the trees.

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

Here they gathered round a coflfee-van or sat in rows,
officers and men side by side, made indistinguishable
by those same colors of the wounded. Many had
walked four or five miles and still the tides of strong
emotions floated them above their pain. They talked
in groups cheerfully; but some lay exhausted on the
ground. A few had been sent down to us in staflf mo-
tor-cars leaning back on soft cushions, and watched
kindly by a red-capped officer who, having handed
over his charges, returned to his car and dashed oflF on
some notable errand.

Pilgrim after pilgrim came from the dread shrine
over the hill, contributed each his share of hope, in-
dignation, despair, and passed on. But first he drank
a cup of tea or Oxo. Everywhere the common ordi-
nary things of life insisted on obtruding. Last night
the witches had been riding, and here were the results
of their incantations — a, stew-pot of tragedy and the
eyes of men in pain, of exaltation, blood and weari-
ness, of' the breath of gas patients, of imspeakable
oaths, of fortitude, sacrifice, and of Oxo.

The caravan where the Oxo was served had its
correct furniture, with little cupboards and mirrors
and red wooden steps. The orderly in charge called
it a little 'ome from 'ome, but he was always hard
at work washing and filling enamel mugs and handing
them out to the crowd. A heavy draught horse yoked
to one of the ambulance wagons lowered his head to
the grotmd. He blew out his nostrils at the smell

WALPURGIS' DANCE

of blood and with startled eyes regarded a thin hu-
man, a wounded Scotch infantryman, asleep on a
stretcher, with a dark stain on his tartan.

The crowd of patients grew and waned and gtew
again. The slow horse-wagons rolled them down the
avenue of trees towards Bethime. The motor-lorries
bimiped them down the same road, but always there
were more arriving.

Who are these cutting hideous capers? They are
in charge of orderlies who cHng to them. "More gas
patients," said a man beside me. Resentful of earth
and heaven these tmfortunates sit, stand, lie, or walk
restlessly hither and thither seeking relief. But they,
too, pass. That man who wept at the wreck of his
own limbs will pass. All will pass away down the
straight road to death or deliverance. Time alone will
end all this; for this is the essence of time by every
sign and symptom. . . .

Patients whose wotmds required dressing again, or
whose bandages had become stiff or uncomfortable,
were taken down into a small dressing-station below
ground where wise authority had laid a large store of
dressings and of perchloride solution. Here Sparky
and Chatham were hard at work, and remained so all
day, in the semi-darkness. One of our officers worked
with them, sharing their toil and fatigue as much as
superintending them.

Patients smelling of blood and of the soil crowded
down into the den or sat round the entrance. They

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

looked with frightened or weary or proud eyes at
their wounds : they repeated their adventures again or
grew indifferent through pain.

Once when I emerged from this dug-out on some
errand I saw a French child, a boy of nine or ten, who
had wandered up the road and who now stood rooted
to the spot, staring. He could do nothing but mur-
mur to himself, "Les blesses.**

"Go away, child. Your eyes are more terrible than
all the wars in creation. You take us seriously ! You
have not yet learned that Time and the Witches are
pulling strings and we but dancing to a measure. No,
that man on a stretcher is not dead, not even seriously
wounded. ... Go away for Christ's sake."

For a long while he stood with eyes only for the
nightmare before him; then mercifully a column of
men marching past up the La Bassee road distracted
him.

They were a battalion of Jocks.

"Reinforcements," said a man with a bandage round
his head.

"They'll need reinforcements and all, up there, be-
fore much longer," said another patient who leant
against a tree.

"They're goin' in by Cambrin, I expect," said the
first; "and God help them!"

One of our orderlies, a Scotch boy of nineteen, was
standing near by watching the fours as they passed.
He was a very silent, almost inarticulate youth who

WALPURGIS' DANCE

spent his life in fits of sullen gloom or of explosive
industry. Some one was at my elbow speaking; but
before I turned I noticed that Rob, the orderly, sud-
denly started as though he had taken a bullet. He
took a step forward, then turned and rushed away.
"What's the matter with Rob?" I thought.

"Please, sir," said a humble voice beside me.

I found at my elbow a very small man with his arm
in a sling.

"That bus goes first," I said, pointing to a motor-
lorry. "Do you want help up?" He took a step to-
wards the motor-lorry and then turned to me again.
He grinned and put his hand on his stomach in a de-
precating way. I followed him.

"What's the matter?"

"I've got one here that no one ain't seen yet," he
said, and looked up at me confidingly.

"A wound?" He nodded. "Well, let's see it.
Heavens ! Why all this intrigue ?" He pulled up his
shirt and grinned shyly. There, sure enough, were
two abdominal wounds, an exit and an entrance, which
he had hitherto kept to himself for some extraordinary
reason.

I scolded him well while a stretcher was brought.
"Got any more about you? No. What d'ye think
then — ^they're your wounds to do what you like with!
How far have you walked? Don't know 1 Well, now
you're a stretcher case, see? . . . And don't walk
any more."

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

I knew that probably the stomach walls had not
been pierced, but it was right in such cases to provide
for the worst, and when he had been dressed anew
he was sent oflf proudly on a stretcher with a red label
tied to his button.

"Any more for Blighty?" said the wagon orderly,
jumping up behind his wagon. "Bethune and Blighty

— ^this way " and the old horse-ambulance rolled

slowly off with its load of bandaged passengers lean-
ing wearily one against another.

I was about to cross to the cook-house when the
orderly Rob rushed by me, in full marching order. I
noticed that his eyes were red with weeping. He
jumped the foot path with a fine athletic movement
and set off up the La Bassee road at a steady double.

I knew Rob to be a good cross-country runner, for
he had out-distanced me on several occasions in early
days, but never before had I seen him start so brave-
ly and with a full kit on his back.

"Where the hell is he off to?" I said aloud.
"Haven't ye heard?" said Corporal Paddy, who
had been handing cigarettes round to the groups of
patients. "Haven't ye heard about Rob? He saw his
father a bit since going up into action. Ye know that
battalion that passed up just now? Well, he saw his
own dad in one of the fours — ^and never knew he was
out in France at all. He's got leave from the captain
to follow him, and to report at Cambrin after."

"Will he catch him?" I asked. And we both

WALPURGIS' DANCE

watched the figure lessening on the straight road.

"He's a fine runner/* said Paddy.

"Christ! if he stays here he may see him before
long," said a voice behind us. But we did not turn
round. Paddy and I stood close together and watched
the little figure eagerly.

Then he was a mere speck between the avenue trees.

Then he was gone.

Meanwhile, a cheerful noise of conversation came
from a little group of wounded sitting near together,
discussing and comparing. They have for the moment
forgotten their wounds and each had already made a
little legend of himself. Oh, vanity! Gift of the
gods! Wherewith a man will reward himself more
happily than at the hands of princes ! Away with your
V.Cs, your M.M.S ; here are the true rewards without
selfishness : the little picture each mind has made, com-
potmded of truth and imagination, of itself, its courage
and its achievement.

But it is just this power of self-compensation by
the -human mind that makes a true tale of war impos-
sible. No recording instnunent is more inaccurate.
Here are the units of armies, the instruments of na-
tions. Far away in the capitals of Europe are those
other units of Press and Government^ the agents of
nations. These two are divided not by space alone,
but by changing seas of consciousness. Here are men
returning to contribute to public opinion at home, but

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

even as they go they are themselves changing, return-
ing through various emotional states to the normal.
Whatever their experiences, their true thoughts, have
been, they are even now beyond a magic circle and
cannot be truly communicated. Though but a few
miles away from the fight they themselves are no
longer what they were : are not now what they will be.
Hence the shroud and halo over the fields of battle.
Hence the continual, inevitable ignorance of the truth
of war. This divorce between agent and instrument
is at the root of all the chief evils and witches' work
among men.

Often a single powerful impression has grip of a
man's mind. Here is a man full of admiration for a
German boy soldier, who stood alone on the parapet,
deserted by his comrades, to receive the charge of a
Scotch battalion. A vision rises as from the ashes of
old camp fires. There he stands on the parapet wait-
ing, full of wild antagonism and the spirit of battle.
He shoots three. Our men admire, but slay him.
He continues to live in their minds.

Or the man comes who has followed the fight with
true military instincts. He recalls all the passionate
hopes, angers, regrets of the day, and eagerly inquires
the doings of other battalions. The fierce interest of
the game absorbs him, but his fractured arm now
makes him glad his adventures are in retrospect. But
a little lower down the lines in some hospital when his
arm is set, and the pain subsided, he will recall his

WALPURGIS' DANCE

great desire for that objective, which moved him in
tJie day of the fight, and he will say he wished to
return. In England, in suitable surroundings, he will
say with less sincerity and more emphasis that his one
ivish is to return. Also there is the man convinced by
disaster to his own company that the whole attack is
a failure. He may express this defiantly, or more con-
vincingly by words dropped despite himself. Grad-
ually a whole impression can be gathered from an ac-
cumulation of many. The workings of that other
Mind against us, the Enemy, can be felt meeting, par-
rying, probing. Through many small reflections the
protagonists can be dimly perceived, the minds of the
opposing armies. The men, as they speak in various
northern dialects, reveal various passions; among them
hatred, tossed up with others of its kind. Yet, here in
the struggle itself. Hate is not the motive force. The
inspiration is the spirit of conflict, the Spirit of ^Life
itself.

Life?

Here is war: the thing itself. Standing here upon
the fringe of the charmed circle, let us look at that
thing. Are not hundreds of men at this moment show-
ing those qualities recognized as the essence of life?
The intrepidity of the mountaineer, the patience of the
ploughman, the travail of the woman in childbirth, the
abnegation of the hermit in his cell, the self-sacrifice
of a lover for hi3 belpved.

It is true. And upon the truth of it rests a shining

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

edifice of romance and heroism which draws all eyes.
But although it is true, it is only a half-truth.

Are not other men at this moment suflfering the pain
that corrodes faith, the shame that drives to suicide,
the fatigue tliat makes them at one with clay, the
hatred that makes them animals? Men with self-in-
flicted wounds, malingerers, lunatics, murderers of
prisoners, wounded surviving against their will, cow-
ards waiting for the court-martial. . • .

Life ! God save the mark.

Yet this is true equally with the oflier. And from
this rises nothing but a miasma that spreads over
Europe, poisoning uncounted lives so that men must
fix their eyes on the shining edifice of heroism as
upon Moses*s serpent lifted in the wilderness demand-
ing their faith. So the two half-truths are inseparably
linked together. The one is a lie without the other.
But taken together, do they form a whole Truth —
form substance of Man's unanswerable achievement?
Or do they negative each other? Are they together —
falsehood, unrighteousness, bankruptcy?

Then rumors come from unknown sources. In the
movement of men to and fro, in the swift passing of
a staff motor-car, in the arrival of an ambulance full
of stretcher cases, there seemed to come a comment.
The Hohenzollern Redoubt is ours. It does not fall to
a lie. . . . The Germans are evacuating LUle, Is it
right or wrong that France should belong to the
French? , • ,

WALPURGIS' DANCE

Oh, God, can this be the beginning of the end?
May our sacrifice be not in vain. Give us victory.
How can we not believe in the justice of our cause?

But now it was growing dusk. Was this the first
or second night of the battle — who can remember?
The firing lights for batteries were being lit in the
fields. So many little red eyes. . . .

I felt myself again drawn towards the circle of
speakers who were sitting rotmd an old brazier. They
had been wounded chiefly in the arm, hand or scalp,
and most of them held a cigarette or mug of tea in an
uninjured hand.

A man was telling of a strange incident he had wit-
nessed a few hours before. Between puflfs of a cigar-
ette, the story seemed to escape from his mouth and
take visible shape before me —

He and a small bombing party had returned from a
raid and were resting in comparative safety in a shal-
low trench. One of the party had brought in a wound-
ed German as prisoner. The man took his prisoner
apart, and seating him on an old firing-step, proceeded
to dress his wounds carefully with his own field-dress-
ing.

"I told him he were a fool,'* said the speaker. "It's
a crime to use your first field-dressing on any blighter
—ain't it?"

I nodded.

"And on a blinkin' Boche and all '*

Then the prisoner complained of hunger. His

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

captor gave him a biscuit and then a drink out of his
water bottle. It seemed that the prisoner leaned back
and expressed thanks, but next moment he looked a
bit frightened, for a bloody look had come into the
Englishman's face. "Now," said he, "what about the
Ltisitania? What about the Zeppelin raids?"

As though beside himself he repeated his questions,
but his prisoner only sat with a helpless, conciliating
look, not daring to move.

"Then strike me blind," said the speaker, "if he
didn't half turn his head away, and dig him through
with his bayonet, as though against his will. Then
he started walkin' up and down past him like a loon
and kept stopping opposite him

"What I can't understand is dressing his wounds be-
fore sticking him "

The speaker ended, and spat into the brazier. He
tried to light another cigarette with one hand, but
failed, so I struck a match and held it for him. He
had dried blood on his face and the yellow light gave
it a mummy-like appearance. When the match went
but it seemed that darkness had fallen. Other voices
continued their interminable stories, but those other
two remained painted on the darkness, the priest and
victim, facing each other in their shame and agony.

A dark hour reigned and then the moon appeared
upon her back, looking over the torn edges of the
douds. With admirable impartial eye she witnessed
a variety of sights as they were veiled and unveiled

WALPURGIS' DANCE

before her. By her light the wounded, where they
had fallen, disengage themselves from the dead and
begin the first night of their pilgrimage, inch by inch,
back to their own lines. By her light, also, the snipers
were aided in their cat-and-mouse game upon the same
wounded.

Thus to have watched the night earth through the
ages is doubtless to have acquired perfect wisdom, or
perfect indifference! Oh, statesmen of all nations,
patriots, peoples, could you but look at that cold eye
and see the night battlefields mirrored there ; see also
your own heart mirrored !

But within the coffee-van a small oil lamp burned
warmly. The orderly in charge had washed all his
mugs and hung them up in rows on hooks all round
him. He himself sat at a fixed table reading a novel,
and whenever he moved the van creaked and all the
mugs swung tot and fro. The mirrors and the brass
fittings shone cheerfully, and he was keeping a kettle
hot over a lamp.

When I entered there was a great creaking and
jingling of crockery in the cupboards. I sat down on
a low shelf.

The orderly turned round and said —

"It's no good. I've read four chapters of this tale
and there ain't no murder yet. . . . Seems all about
parsons "

I looked at the book. It was Barchester Towers, by
Trollope, and had once been in my possession.

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"I found it in a locker here," he said. I took the
book and opened it. "I like beaucuop blood ... in
a tale," he continued. Then he got up suddenly t
"Say, sergeant, I know what you'd like, a good drop
of cocoa, eh?"

I nodded.

As he busied himself with his mugs he continued
to talk. "Now a book I like is a good Hall Caine. Eh,
but they're fine tales. And they're so true to life."

"What do you mean by true to life ?" I asked.

"Well," he said, ''what I mean is youTl nearly always
find in his tales a young woman who's been taken ad'
vantage of. But get away ! You'll not find an)rthing
of that sort there!" And he pointed the finger of
scorn at Anthony TroUope.

"Yet this is true to life," I replied, and continued to
turn over the pages.

Gradually the mild characters within the book began
to stir. Qad in decent black they descended immacu-
late steps from Deanery doors and trod the pavements
of Cathedral towns. Their wives, their babies, their
intrigues, their preferments seemed, at least, as real to
them as the fantastic business of our lives seemed to
us. I sipped my cocoa and dreamed of my last incar-
nation millions of years ago when I was a Victorian
and a clergyman, when the enemy was Newman or
Canon Kingsley and the battlefields were Diocesan
conferences, the common rooms of Oxford, or the
pages of the Monthly Packet

WALPURGIS' DANCE

Outside, meanwhile, the circle of patients dwindled.
By two o'clock only three figures sat round the embers
in the brazier. Some one had set a hurricane lamp
on the damp ground, and in the upward beams of its
light a man with bent head and large limbs sat motion-
less, speaking. His utterance was as much to himself
as to pthers.

**• . . There was one place we got to : all our offi-
cers was gone : all our N.C.O.s too ; shot down, every
bloody one. We was all companies and regiments
mixed up — Chrise Ormighty couldn't have told who
was who. Some of us wanted to go on. Some said,
*No : to hell with it, let's stay here ! There was no one
to give the order — see. The Germans never once stop-
ped for ua when we charged. They'd beggar off and
then come working round us with bombs. They
weren't half clever at that game. It was soon bloody
murder where we was, so we retired. Well, some

stayed; some retired. There was that S officer

there too. He'd gone mad in the barbed wire. They
wanted me to shoot him. / didn't know what to do.
Awful it was. And bleed me if there weren't a Wigan
lad and a Burnley lad wounded and wouldn't quit talk-
ing football. And the mad officer calling and calliqg
his regiment. See, we had to go back. They had their
machine-guns in that there village in no time. We
could see them all, in their gray tmif orms^ making over
the hills like lice. We'd gone too far — see? But I
swore I'd end those bombers. Eight of them had got

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

into a trench on our left. I went round alone. It was
nearly dark by then. Five I got ; they said, 'Camerade,
Camerade' — they all do, but I spiked them ; all but one.
A young chap he was. In the moonlight he only looked
sixteen. Not that neither. I sent him in front of me
down the trench. He wept and carried on : and then,
bash me ! if he didn't nearly do me in, after all. We
passed a box of hand grenades half open. He made
a grab for one, nearly got it, too, but I gave him one
on his napper just in time. Even then I didn't stick
him. Couldn't. When we got out on the road he
wanted to shake hands. I took him down to Sailly, for
I had this bit of a wound myself. He seemed quite
grateful at the finish.

"But they're a rum set of fellows — ^no mistake.
There's a lot of youngsters among them. They say a
lot of these snipers are youngsters.

"They never wait to meet us man to man. But
they can fight behind guns — any sort of guns. They're
wide — ^no mistake. They seem to fight with their
heads. But we'll learn: those that are left of us/*

There are no calls and curtains here. All is anti-
climax except Death or Peace. Men of the R.A.M.C.
who move quietly into or out of danger without praise
know this In certain moods men in the mass reveal
their, souls, as in certain winds leayes blow white,
showing their undersides. Soldiers then march full

WALPURGIS' DANCE

of foreboding to triumph, or singing to annihilation;
that is as we see them, but they are already in a spirit
world.

All hands now to the stretchers. Back, therefore,
to the trenches and those dressing-station dug-outs
that used to be musty enough!

But what can they be like now?

In a foul den smelling of antiseptics, bully beef, old
clothes and dried blood, behold Sparky again with
sleeves rolled up at more serious work than ever. His
fringe is still in curl, his moustache still pointed, the
same fag end in his mouth! But his eyes are lined
with fatigue.

In this phantasmagoria we meet our friends in un-
forseen places and are grateful for their familiar
traits. However busy a well-trained medical orderly
may be he always has time for a crack with a friend.
Sparky and his officer had put up at least seventeen
femurs alone and used up all available Liston splints.

His officer, who worked in a similar den along the
same trench, left all lesser fractures to him. This
officer entered for a moment. Externally he was well-
known to us. He put his head on one side and allowed
his eyes to dwell upon a patient exactly as of old in
the receiving-room. It was fitting he should be un-
changed for any stress of circumstances. His courage
and a certain whimsical attitude to the business in
hand rejoiced his subordinates. He had but now
stood up on the railway line in a little squall of shells

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

and coolly directed the unloading again of a trolly
full of wounded ready to start. He ordered Sparky
to sleep for two hours ; an order he instantly obeyed.

We were directed on to the quarries, which wer^
reported full of wounded, and from which many
stories had come down to us. It seemed to be still
daytime when we started, but night overtook us in
the winding alleys. After hours of shulffing round
endless clay comers we emerged at length upon a shal-
low arena where troops were coming and going.

Danger sharpens the senses like low music. It
seemed that for our benefit the monomaniac genius of
Man had contrived a marvelous compositon of Death
and the indifferent moon upon her clouds, of little
black shifting figures of men, a heap of slain, giant
shadows climbing the earth as the flare lights waned, a
bent tree, the distant roar of big guns, singing bullets,
moving lights.

Here, truly, was the second circle of sad Hell.

The bearers moved down across the sand and round
the side of the quarry ; little squads of men linked by
the stretchers.

We sat on a damp heap of sandbags and waited.
When our turn for patients came we moved forward
again, and stopped opposite the mouth of a dug-out
where an orderly was supporting a patient. A medi-
cal officer stood by directing the bearers. "Move off,"
he said with an impatient swing of his arm, as soon as
the patient had lain down upon the stretcher.

WALPURGIS' DANCE

The rain had made the chalky soil slippery, so that
the bearers often lurched against the side of the trench
and leaned heavily against it, unable to recover them-
selves under the load. A man of our squad fainted
from fatigue and we finished that journey without his
assistance. As the night had fallen upon us, so now
the day broke and found us still rounding clay cor-
ners, still sttunbling forward, while the long g^ass on
the parapets danced in the wind.

''Lower stretcher," some one groaned, and the two
bearers closed their eyes and slept for a fraction of a
second as they came to rest, bowed to the ground.
Then I opened my eyes and saw matted hair and a
brow knit in pain, quite close to me. Who was this?
Of course ! Our last patient ! Though the senses were
numb from exhaustion the brain would notice every
detail, and insisted on recalling everything —

**You have been again to the quarry. You went
deep down into the earth into a tomb where a number
of people lay on the grovmd with their heads covered.
A candle burnt on a box, and the gun-fire sounded
sleepy. Then you asked in a loud voice who had
been there longest, and some one sat up at once and
pointed out a very old Scotchman with gray hair, and
a yoimg officer who had been given morphia. ..."

"Is it much farther. Sergeant?" said a voice, calling
up to me out of a bottomless pit. . . .

"Then the man who had sat up lay down again —
you remember, and you got the patients out one by

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

one. And the officer's lips were blue with morphia
and he shivered in the cold. He had nothing over him
but an old overcoat stiff with blood. Then they were
sniping the entrance to the quarry and your two
squads had to take their chance. And all round the
sides of the quarry boots of dead men and sleeping
men protruded from the holes. ..."

"Lower stretcher^

"And your patient, the officer, was too tall for the
stretcher, so that his heels hung over one end and his
head over the other. And he weighs thirteen stone.
He says so himself apologetically . . . and his teeth
are chattering. . . ."

"Lift stretcher."

"Is it much farther, Sergeant?"

"Not much farther," I replied, but it was a lie.

Gay voices were heard coming towards us, and pres-
ently a curve in the trench revealed a young subaltern
at the head of a working party. They flattened them-
selves against the trench to let us pass. The subaltern
did not perceive that our patient under the old over-
coat was an officer.

"Never mind, my man," he said, as we squeezed
past; "you'll soon be in England among the pretty
nurses."

Out patient was gazing at the sky. "My God," he
groaned, and resumed the endurance of his torture.

A little further on we came upon a group of Royal
Engineers with a dixy of tea between them. One of

WALPURGIS' DANCE

the group stepped forward with some tea and rum in
a mess tin. With great tenderness he went down on
one knee and held the dirty mess tin to the patient's
mouth, who supped at it like a child and fell back on
the stretcher. We leaned against the trench, staring
stupidly. Then we staggered on. "It's an officer/'
they whispered to each other as we left them.

Onward through Hell's endless purlieus we went.

There was no end to this labor. Our patient, star-
ing upwards, was so weary of the sky. We were so
weary of the earth. The clay walls were a grave of
infinite length. Why not subside within them and die?

"Is it much farther, Serjeant?"

"Not much farther." And this time it was not a lie,
for there, showing in front of us, were the three pop-
lar trees. Beneath them ran Humanity Trench, and
at the foot of one was our dressing-station. . . .

When we looked up again the three trees were larger
and nearer. The sim shone on our left above the para-
pet.

We lowered the stretcher, for the last time, we
hoped, and sat in a heap at the head and foot of our
patient. Three men passed us along the trench and we
looked at their boots as they passed, not troubling to
look up. But a voice floated down to us, the voice of
an angel. It said, "The division is being withdrawn,
but the ambulance must clear its wounded first." And
another voice growing fainter replied, "Some of the
Jocks are already asleep behind the lines."

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

'* Lift stretcher r There is Humanity Trench. Only
another fifty feet, and for Christ's sake mind his shoul-
der at this right-hand turn. ..."

Twenty-four hours later, in the city of Bethune, I
found myself at the door of Agostin's bakehouse. I
pushed the door open and entered. Agostin nodded to
me. "Monsieur had then returned to billets — ^yes?"
and he continued making those singular movements
Over his kneading-machine. He worked always strip-
ped to the waist. His body was brown, and he wore
blue linen trousers and canvas slippers. He dived
skilfully into the kneading-machine and brought out
an armful of dough, which he slapped down on a
board and weighed on a pair of large scales. Old
bowed Marie, who both drove the baker's cart and
helped in the bakery, and little Berthe, were busy
meanwhile powdering the long baskets with flour and
putting the dough into them. The baskets had canvas
linings and were very thick and strong. Everything
and every one became powdered with flour — ^floor, win-
dow-ledge, little Berthe's eyebrows, the ridge of the
oven, Agostin's arms and shoulders, the empty dove's
cage, old Marie's kerchief. Eternally the fairy snow
falls and settles, and the little dog who guards the
bakehouse at night, and who sleeps over the oven by
day, eternally leaves his pad marks on the floor.

I stood with my back to the oven door, growing

WALPURGIS' DANCE

lyarmer and warmer, and I determined I should re-
main there all day. After the Walpurgis' dance of the
last three days there was something exquisitely sooth-
ing in watching the quiet, deft, sinuous movements of
Agostin. He seemed never to repeat himself, never
to hesitate, like Marie and Berthe in their conversa-
tion.

I told them something of what I had seen and heard.
Was it not but yesterday, but five miles distant, that
all that had happened? How was it, then, that even
as I spoke it all seemed childish and unreal? Little
Berthe ran oflF to her coffee. Old Marie nodded over
her baskets; and Agostin, though he listened politely,
continued his movements, and always moved me out
of the way when he wanted to get at the oven door.

When the time came to take out the loaves that
were baked, Agostin took a long rake and pltmged it
deep into the oven. Soon the delicious, crisp, frag-
rant-smelling "breads" were heaped together and load-
ed on to Marie's van. Then Agostin continued his
motions at the kneading-machine.

What was it that so affected me in watching him?
Was it a secret, yet perfectly natural, mental compen-
sation? He seemed to assure me of the fact that not
all the wars since the beginning of time had been able
to stop him and his kind from thus moving about their
peaceful work of making and baking five hundred
loaves in a day. Was it the doubt of this that I had
seen sometimes in the fearful eyes of the wounded —

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

a doubt that they had lost the pleasant homely things
of life for ever? That bread, vegetables, lamplight*
the open hearth, had somehow been forfeited, the com-
fortable clothing of om- minds stripped from us, as
we lay on our backs in pain in unspeakable places.
For a moment their sorrow, undistracted by fatigue,
was mine. Then, in the same loneliness of outraged
sense, I turned again to watch the hairy, floury-whit-
ened arms of Agostin supporting the world.

CHAPTER VI

A CHBISTMAS

"What a pantomime creature is Man! Not content with
home he attends the play, reads romances and entertains
a hundred adventurous sentiments. Yet not content with
adventures when he has them, nothing pleases him more
than to find some corner where he can tell firelight stories
with others and imagine himself at home again/' — Old Play,

THE quintette was rehearsing "The Comrades* Song
of Hope" for the concert at Christmas. The diffi-
culty that had chiefly stood in our way was a suitable
place for rehearsals. One evening I asked Belgian Ma-
rie if we could come into her kitchen and sing English
songs.

"Les chansons — ^mais oui."

Sparky was then up in the trenches. He might have
objected otherwise to the secret of Marie's parlor, to
which indeed I had myself brought him, being shared
by so many persons. The parlor was small, but was
warm and comfortable, and held an oil lamp. Marie's
grandfather sat at the stove. He was so old that he
washed no more. He did nothing, in fact, but sit all
day at the stove and play with bits of coke. But
Marie herself was young and had very pretty

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

shoulders that shook noticeably when she laughed.

One day Sparky and I had brought the mess gramo-
phone by stealth and played her some waltzes and
popular airs. Poor girl, it was an event in her life.
As she listened to the stalest of tunes, her eyes
sparkled and became dreamy by turns, or a tender ex-
pression would come into her face.

It was partly for her sake that I had brought the
quintette to her parlor. Now she stood at the stove.

She had made and handed us our cocoa in little
bowls, and with hand on hip surveyed the singers.
Her head was a little on one side, graceful and proud
in repose. Sometimes she looked at the faces of the
young men with an unconscious inquisitive look. They
knitted their brows over the difficult parts in **The
Comrades' Song of Hope," such as —

''Play the man . . . play the man. . . •
Play the man and win the fight. . . .'*

Marie's kitten jumped on to the knee of one of the
singers. When he turned the page the kitten sud-
denly put out its little black paw. Marie laughed
quickly and delightedly, but the serious singer paid
no heed.

''Play the ma-an . • • play th« ma-an,"

he continued undisturbed. . . .

"The Comrades* Song of Hope" was followed by

A CHRISTMAS

"Sweet and Low." Private Peep, a little man with
a true ear for music and a tenor voice above the aver-
age, gave out the first few bars in a soft voice, as
though unwilling to draw attention to himself. Neth-
ersole from behind his large spectacles studied the
score, which was written in sol-fa notation. Uncle
Tom, chief bass, in the absence of Corporal Bailiff
who was on guard, opened a large mouth and waited
for the proper moment. ScoUy and Alf , assistant
tenors, looked along the table to Private Peep. The
first rendering of "Sweet and Low" was deemed rough
and the song was repeated. Marie liked it beyond
others that followed.

I noticed that Marie had put on her black velvet
blouse in order to show up her golden hair. She had
also pinned up on the wall in our honor an English
picture, a page from the Tatler, representing an Eng-
lish Countess, and her three beautiful children dressed
en Fauntleroy. Marie was exactly the right kind of
audience, attentive, impressionable, attractive herself,
yet ministering to our needs. We spent a happy eve-
ning and filed out from behind the table into the cold
dark road regretfully. '

We had said good-bye to Marie and we saw her no
more, nor her grandfather fumbling at the stove, nor
her oil lamp, nor the picture of the countess on the
wall.

We learned we were moving, and wondered where
our next rehearsal would be held.

837640

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

The sergeant's mess of our new quarters was an
ample room, with casement windows, green painted
panelling and a paved floor. It formed the chief par-
lor of a farm house in the village. In the next room
sat the ancient farmer Monsieur R. and his elder
daughter, who spent most of her time cooking and
ironing. His younger daughter Leah did no house
work. She was only sixteen and was very inquisitive.
Most of her time was spent skipping about between
the two rooms. Monsieur R. sat in a wooden arm-
chair in front of the stove in the evenings and liked
to talk with us as we went in and out.

"Cafe au rhum bong for serjongs," we would say.

"Thumbs up. Victory is us," he would reply. He
was over sixty years old but still healthy and active,
and about his farm buildings before reveille in the
mornings. On Sundays he dressed in black and went
to mass.

On a morning shortly before Christmas, after pa-
fade and kit inspection, I received instructions to help
forward arrangements for the Christmas dinner.
Chatham and I were to make a survey of the village
and report on a suitable spot for the Christmas din-
ner.

'•Who are we to report to?" I asked.

"To the Dinner Committee," replied Chatham.

"Who are they?"

"Nobody knows. But let us go into the estaminet
and count the glasses."

100

A Christmas

The estaminet finally selected was kept by a smart,
capable lady who had glasses and beer enough to go
round, and who was willing to accommodate a crowd.
A record of the beer drunk would be kept faithfully
on her part

We said we would cook the dinner ourselves and
convey it to the estaminet. But what about a piano?

Madame was extending hospitality to two refugee
ladies, one of whom sang exquisitely, but there was
no piano.

We had heard about the refugee ladies, tres aim-
ables, would they help in the entertainment? They
would be enchant^ sans doute. "Bong," I said. "Could
we borrow a piano ?"

Madame then told us that there was but one piano
in the village owned by a very proud lady who lived
at the farm with the white gate opposite. What about
going to see the proud lady?

"She is not S3mipathetic to soldiers.'*

Meanwhile Qiatham leaned against the bar and sur-
veyed the room with the eye of a mystic. It looked
very clean and neat in the morning sunshine, with its
rows of little tables, flower-pots in the windows, and
with its clean floor covered with sawdust "It's no.
use," he said, "it won't hold every one."

Madame reminded us that there was another room
overhead where some of our own men were now bil-
leted, and which could also be used.

We went upstairs.

loi

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

The room above was a large mansard chamber
feebly lit by two dormer windows covered by muslin
curtains. Men's kits were ranged round the room.

We discovered a long trestle table lying along the
boards of the roof. That would make three tables,
a fourth could be improvised. The dinner could be
brought up the narrow stairs. Eighty men could have
their repast up here and squeeze into the estaminet for
the concert afterwards.

Outside in the street the mud was drying up in the
winter sunshine. A general service wagon passed by
with a happy A.S.C. man on the box. A feeling of
Christmas time was in the air. The lady of the esta-
minet stood on her step and again mentioned the piano
at the house of the proud lady opposite. She was evi-
dently anxious for us to attempt the loan of it, but
did iiot want to suggest it herself.

Every one seemed to hold the proud lady in awe.

Down the street we met Sergeant AUsop with a
notebook in his hand and a very melancholy expres-
sion. We stopped him. He said. "It strikes me
ever3rthing's going to be a mix-up. No one knows
what's what. All the posts are held up. The A.S.C.
men say they don't want their Christmas dinner along
with us. There's half the men this morning with kit
missing, a list of religions wanted at once and every
one's out on a route march, and /'w orderly sergeant/'

"And we've been frantically busy," I said,, "all
this morning, not a minute to spare, and who knows

102

A CHRISTMAS

anything about what we're doing? Nobody. No one
knows who the Committee are. There's not a room
in the village big enough to hold every one. No tables
to be had anywhere. We can't all sit on the floor.
No piano. ... No nothing."

"And who's going to get the vegetables, oranges and
biscuits for the menu?" asked Chatham. "If they're
not bought at once there'll be none left in the shops."

"The whole thing will be a box-up. ..."

"Bound to be."

Then Sergeant AUsop went on his way, but he called
us back, and related the latest story from the cook-
house. "Snice but snaughty — what? Not a word I I
must be off now and get this list of diseases — re-
ligions, I mean."

After which we went our ways, considerably
brightened again.

"Let's go and see Private Joseph the carpenter
about tables," I suggested. "There's always great vir-
tue in a carpenter."

Joe had taken up his quarters in a kind of shed,
having canvas walls made of a wagon cover that
bulged inwards in the wind. All the empty bacon
boxes from stores and cookrhouses belonged to him
by right, and no matter where the ambulance might be
stationed, Joe lived continually in a busy little world
of his own, in some cellar, shed or garden house, with
his precious boxes and tools around him. He had
plum-brown eyes and always looked surprised when

103

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

he was asked a question. As he worked he revolved
monstrous jokes in his mind. He spoke in a mysteri-
ous underground voice and opened his mouth to listen.
"Here they comes/* he said as we entered, and he con-
tinued working with a plane he had himself made out
of a block of pitch pine and a safety razor.

"Any timber to spare, Joe?" He stopped work and
regarded us.

"About how much should you require?"

"Well, we want— er — ^to improvise a table." He
scratched his head profotmdly.

^•Withlegs?"

"Yes."

**You're asking too much." He resumed his work.

*7oe — a table — ^to put beer upon — ^beaucoup beau-
coup beer.

"Funny, I was just thinking of beer when you come
m,

"For Christmas dinner, Joe. Listen. Three long
battens. Two trestles made each of two bacon boxes
one on top of another." But Joe waved his plane at
the ceiling.

"He comes talking to me about tables and beer when
I*m makin' book-cases for the chaplain and his new
hut. Hell be in here in a minute to see how they're
getting on."

"Well, lend us some wood and we'll knock' up some-
thing."

"YouVe never returned that file I lent you."

104

A CHRISTMAS

"It's Christmas time. Return good for evil, Joe."

"Ho no. I should be doing good all day long."

Then we told him the cook-house story which wc
had lately heard from Sergeant AUsop. It had a soft-
ening effect on Joe. He laughed with one eye and
swallowed the joke for what it was worth. He then
seized himself with both hands and cut a short capen
"Well," said he» "there's some battens outside about
ten foot, but you'll have to get leave from the Colonel
to use them."

We turned to leave him and saw a copy of La Vie
Parisienne lying open near the door. I stopped and
turned over the pages. Immediately I heard a chuckle
behind me, and Joe rushed to the wall where he made
a mark on a piece of paper. "You're the sixth," said
he. "Ho yes, they all stop a minute — ^just a minute ;
privates, officers, sergeants, they're all the same. See
here. There's the parson coming in, in a minute.
We'll see how long he spends at it. Well see if he's a
man. Waiting all the morning for him."

He cut another caper and returned to his bench.

At dinner that day I suggested that Mack should
go and visit the proud lady with the piano and plead
for it for our Christmas dinner. The refugee lady
with the beautiful voice should not be left unaccom-
panied.

"You speak French so well. Mack."

"But you have more words at your command."

"But you have more addressed*

los

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"But you are so good at getting things. Besides,
I'm going to medical stores. Pass the H.P, sauce/*

"Have you heard about the refugee ladies?" said
Sergeant Pite.

Soon after dinner I went to the farm with the white
gate.

Madame at the estaminet caught sight of me through
her window, and came out on the doorstep. Other
faces peeped at other windows. By this time the
whole village had heard of the intended festivity and
of the piano difficulty. I went up a little drive to a
doorstep scrubbed and spotless. I knocked, and a
small middle-aged woman opened the door at once as
if I was expected. This lady was probably a relation
of proud Madame O.'s. She led me into a flagged
parlor where other ladies of various sizes and ages
were busy sewing or ironing. They all seemed to
know why I had come and all began speaking at once.

•'No, she won't let you have tiie piano," they said
in French.

I gathered that Madame O. herself was not present.
These were only her retinue ; all, no doubt, connected
by family ties. But it was good policy to wip them
over if possible, so I pleaded with them first.

"She lent it once to some English officers who kept
it for three weeks," said one.

"But we will return it in two days — ^we will pay ten
francs."

io6

A CHRISTMAS

'Tourqaoi les officiers anglais sont-ils si fiers," said
another.

"Mais nous sommes les Tommies/'

"Ah — les Tommies— AUez lui demander — ^Tiens
j'adore les Tommies — Sergeant, etes vous marie?
Mais les officiers anglais — pourquoi si fiers — ^ils vous
regardent comme ga — ^Vous avez des enfants sans
doute."

The questions swelled to a chorus requiring no an-
swers but feeding on itself and growing in strength.

But meanwhile one of the younger ladies, who had
sped swiftly along a stone corridor opening out of the
parlor and as swiftly returned, whispered to me that
Madame O. would see me herself. She told me to fol-
low her, and sped again along the stone corridor, stop-
ping in front of a door on the right.

"The piano's in there, too," she whispered, and left
me alone. I entered. The room was a kind of bed-
sitting-room. A very large elderly woman sat in an
arm-chair. She was so large that she concealed the
arm-chair with her person. She had handsome dark
eyes and hair parted down the middle ; but what took
my breath away was a pair of gigantic stays, re-
sembling the armor of Hercules, which she held up be-
tween her extended arms. She had a needle in her
mouth and was evidently engaged upon mending the
stays; yet in spite of the needle she began a flow of
speech immediately I entered the room. I wanted to
run away, but the sight hypnotized me against my

107

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

will, I could only stare helplessly. When I recovered
my wits she had already mentioned the unfortunate
loan of the piano to the officers and was instructing
me to look at three scratches upon its surface.

"Ah I The piano!" I turned to obey her instruc-
tions. It was a relief.

"Mais c'est abime/' she said behind me.

"But we should be so careful, and we would tune it
for you. It would not have far to go — only to Mad-
ame at the estaminet.*' I said this over my shoulder,
but the fascination of terror made me look round
again. She put the needle in her mouth and extended
her arms again. Those stays! I trembled! Any
young man would have done the same. But she con-
tinued imperturbably.

"Votre fete de Noel, n'est-ce pas? Vous aurez de
bonheur — et les deux Mamselles refugees vous assis-
tent sans doute. Ellea chantent de bon voix. On dit
qu'elles etaient seduis par les Allemands : mais ce f era
plus interessant. Les anglais sont des hommes comme
les autres — ^n'est-ce pas?"

"Mais pas des betes, Madame," I said.

"Dieu! lis sont tons des betes. Attendez. Pour
quinze francs le piano si vous le voulez."

"Pour deux jours alors?"

She agreed to this, and after some further conver-
sation I hiTried out of the presence. The lesser ladies
in the ante-chamber cried out, full of curiosity, to
know if I had been successful.

io8

A CHRISTMAS

At the gate I met Chatham, who said we were both
ordered to proceed to B. with an officer in one of the
ambulance cars to buy supplies for the Christmas
dinner.

*'But the piano," I cried. "It should be fetched this
afternoon, and no one will dare **

'*Askthe orderly sergeant — ^the officer's waiting **

We caught a glimpse of Sergeant Allsop's slender
figure at the comer with his list of religions in his
hand. He noted down our religion and promised to
do what he could about the piano. "It's all a box-up,"
he shouted aftet us.

Captain T. was dnunming impatiently with his heels
on the floor of the car.

"As soon as we get there it'll be time to come back,"
he said, lighting a cigarette. "Tell the driver to go
first to the Expeditionary Force Canteen." The car
started and we sat back in our seats watching the hop-
pole^ pass against the winter sky.

I felt borne along like a leaf on an impetuous river,
snatched from eddy to eddy.

So much for a life of sensations.
Chatham brought out a list as long as his arm and
b^;an repeating, "Plum puddings, two dozen. Twelve
packets of custard powder. Onions, ad. lib. Mixed
biscuits at E.F.C. Query, Eng^sh beer. . . ."

The town was crowded. Poulterers, butchers,
greengrocers and cake shops were filled with civilians
and soldiers. An A.S.C. man drove an English road*

Z09

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

sweeper down the main street, impeding the trafiic.
StaflF cars hooted majestically, and military policemen
waved their arms at street comers. Officers and
N C.O.s, emissaries from mess-rooms rushed frantical-
ly from shop to shop in their efforts to get change of
five-franc notes. Chatham groaned when he thought
of the ten- and twenty-franc notes in his pocket.
, When the car stopped opposite the E.F.P., Captain
T. said ''Send as much as you can back in the car
now. You two will have to walk back." We pre-
pared to force our way into the crowded canteen.

The interior was decorated for Christmas with
holly, with colored calenders, texts and advertise-
ments. The tins with their red, yellow, blue and green
labels were reared to the ceiling like volumes in a
library. The canteen men were driven distracted over
their tills improvising small change, and pacifying offi-
cers of high rank. The officers were served from a
dais at one end, where they could survey the common
herd and give their orders to any assistant who might
be within earshot. But down in the arena men scuf-
fled happily round the Christmas card counter or ex-
tricated themselves from the crowd round the coflFee-
table, with a mug held high in one hand and a salmon
saiidwich in another. Seats were provided along one
side where a rest could be had between the wrestling
bouts.

"What price Muwer Smifs corfee stall?** said a
voice near me.

A CHRISTMAS

"Open him. Wot's inside the blighter?" said an-
other, inspecting his sandwich.
"Last Christmas it was hun sausages."
"Have a mystery/' said some one, handing round a

"No fraternizing this Christmas — ^*we're here to fight
and not to fraternize.' "

"I reckon we'll keep quiet if they keep quiet."

I saw Big Harry standing in the crowd like a light-
house buffetted by waves. We saluted across the
storm. H^ was also buying Christmas things for the
detachment he was in charge of.

We loaded what we could get on to the car, and then
Chatham mentioned another dozen or so of items. The
afternoon was spent going from shop to shop till dark-
ness fell.

But we made each a private purchase. Chatham
bought a bottle of tangerine liqueur. I bought a quan-
tity of marrons glaces in a paper bag.

We returned in darkness and rain along the road,
laden with parcels. The rain beat us to silence, and
our boots sank in the mud. But the oil lamp in the
sergeants' mess shone upon us at last. I held the paper
bag still in my hand, but the marrons glaces had gone.
T was speechless. Chatham laughed loud and long:
"He bought four francs' worth of marrons glaces and
dropped them along the muddy road — pour beau
geste," he cried.

Ill

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

There is a tradition in the Army that on Christmas
Day the men shall be waited on by die N.C.O.S. But
Chatham waited on every one.

In time of pleasure men sometimes show themselves
for what they are, as truly as in times of panic.

But the cooks had also played a noble part, and came
to the tables rather exhausted. We had carried Ae
dixies up rhe main street from the cook-house to the
estaminet, and the Frenchmen and women got up from
their vegetable soups to watch the procession of good
Fnglish joints.

"Noa, NoS/' we called to them ; "diner promenard
— Anglays beaucoup manger I' The estaminet parlor
formed an L-shaped room, having a small kitchen
opening out of one end. The kitchen gave upon a
back yard, now covered with smoking dixies, sauce-
pans and dishes. Within the parlor the tables had been
set end to end and plates and glasses laid. The guests
had to bring their own knives and forks.

Tile piano, which had been fetched and tuned, was
placed in the comer near the stove. In the room
above, the muslin curtain had been removed and the
v/indows cleaned, so that more light reached the
tables. Sume of the men billeted in this room pre-
ferred to remain and make up parties at their own
tables ; others rushed downstairs and secured seats in
the bright parlor below.

"Sergeant, why didn't you give us the tip, and we'd
have done some decorating for you?"

112

A CHRISTMAS

"Sei^eant, why don't they never have only sacred
picters in France?"

"Picters! Get a good side of bacon hanged up,
that's the best picter."

"There's the orderly sergeant — ^hope he won't cop
me for a guard."

"Who are the poor devils on guard?"

'They'll get their dinner all right. They don't go on
duty till six."

The orderly sergeant, merciless as fate, was looking
round the already crowded room for his victims. "The
A.S.C. men are coming after all," he called out to me.
"Ill come and give you a hand presently." At that
moment I saw, through the back window, Chatham
stumbling into the yard with a huge box On his shoul-
der.

By this lime Madame in her best apron, and the two
refugee Indies, one dressed in blue plush and the other
in a gray check skirt and cream blouse, began to move
busily about, and to take a lively interest in ever3rthing.

Madame was bobbing behind her bar, while the lady
in blue plush went in and out of a cupboard which
seemed full of jugs and woollen petticoats.

"Beaucoup beer, beaucoup ju^s," said an interested
voice. Then Madame went herself into the cupboard,
from the depths of which she called out from time to
time in a piercing voice.

"Which is the lady who sings so beautifully?" I
asked a man in the comer.

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

'TThat Oiie there/' says he; "there she is yonder — see
r— in a chfH:k skirt and her hair done funny. Eh, but
she's got a champion voice — ^and she's a nice lass and
all Shall us ask her to sing, Sergeant?"

•'Later on/-'

The lady in question was no longer in her first
youth, but both she and her friend have very graceful
figures, and wore their clothes effectively. She had a
pale, expressionless face, as though she had endured
a great deal of physical pain, but that was only notice-
able when she was not laughing or talking. She often
raised her arm in its Parisian sleeve, and put her hand
to her hair.

They were both obviously town-bred girls, perhaps
from Lille or one of the northern cities, and had per-
haps dreamed of society more comme-il-faut than ours.
We knew that they were quite alone, without discover-
able relations owing to the war, and that Madame was
indeed their benefactress. Towards us they showed
no trace either of disdain or self-consciousness, but
only friendliness and vivacity, and there was not a
man present who did not regard them in the same
spirit.

It was Mack, I think, who once remarked that
French women appeared at first mysterious, and re-
vealed by degrees that they were simple, whereas Eng-
lish women appeared simple at first and later revealed
a bafffing complexity.

A scene of indescribable density had meanwhile de-

114

A CHRISTMAS

veloped in the little kitchen. At the back, where the
dishing up of the soup was in progress, N.C.O.s hold-
ing plates squeezed out of the kitchen and hurried to
the tables where the men who had not yet been served
were singing patiently. Having delivered their plates,
they then dashed back to the swarm in the kitchen.
The core of the swarm was Adam in his shirt sleeves,
helping plate after plate with fiery energy, while an-
other helper worked more smoothly beside him. The
room overhead was not forgotten, and the steep wopd-
en stairs resounded to heavy feet as waiters rushed
perilously up and down with as many plates as they
could carry. To compensate for their comparatively
lonely position up above, a gramophone had been pro-
vided, which two A.S.C. men took in charge, and
played incessantly. Its faded tones echoed down the
stairs.

Joints with two vegetables followed, then came the
plum puddings with sauce. Dirty plates gathered in
shoals in the yard, and were energetically attacked by
a little band of helpers. Owing to Chatham, hot water
was forthcoming. He had been fetching and carrying
from the cook-house all the afternoon. I emerged from
a long spell of covering plum puddings with sauce and
found him in the yard. He was looking through the
back window through which heads and glasses could
be seen.

"Well," he said, "they're enjoying themselves, ain't
they? What's going on now?"

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"Captain T. is replying after drinking healths."

"Then the beer phase has begun."

A kind of interval for washing up occurred, during
which a friend of mine came out into the yard, already
rather drunk, and began to walk about among the dirty
plates. "Mind ye," says he, "this is verra pleasant,
and I'm not running it down, ye understand — Ser-
geant — ^but we dinna attach importance to Chistmas
in Scotland. A man will not take his drop at Christ-
mas with the same satisfaction as he will on New
Year's Eve. This is verra pleasant, verra pleasant, but
I could bide a week for it, Sergeant. It's no the New
Year yet."

"That perhaps explains," I said, "why the chaplain
refused to hold a service this morning— even a volun-
tary service — ^when the men asked him. He told me
it was not the custom in Scotland. He's a Presby-
terian."

"It's no the custom. It's no the custom. And why
should it be? Why go to the kirk if it's not the Sab-
bath?. We're not all papists yet, though there are
many on the way, and through the porrch of episco-
pacy- ''

At this point he broke a plate and was hustled out
of the yard. Within the estaminet some one began a
popular tune on the piano. A lamp was lit. Then
another and another. Men dropped down from the
darkening room above and squeezed into the parlor
between the tables. Only the two A,C,S, men stayed

ii6

A CHRISTMAS

upstairs playing the gramophone, with absorbed faces.

Mack and I found two chairs and sat in the door-
way of the kitchen. We could see half of the crowded
room in front of us, the rows of heads and the glasses
along the tables.

A soloist had begun to sing. It was Private Peep,
who accompanied himself and sang sweetly in his
drawing-room tenor. The song was "There's a Dear
Little Country." It was an old favorite and was loudly
applauded.

"Why are we so fond of sentimental songs about
Ireland, I wonder?"

"They are nearly as popular as Yankee rag-times."

A ragtime followed. We sang the chorus and
tapped glasses. Then I noticed that an old Frenchman
had entered. He went over to the ladies at the bar^
and sat smilingly near them, smoking a clay pipe. He
nodded and smiled to every one.

Reggie was now singing a comic song of the old
style which gave opportunity of alluding to charac-
ters in the audience. Shouts and laughter followed
each sally. Reggie was a man who never changed
under any persuasion of circumstances. His home
was in one of the loveliest villages in western Eng-
land. He never spoke much of his home, but he never
lost touch with it. He always grinned when he sang
his songs, and threw over the performance an old ale-
house joviality and direct humor.

One of the French ladies came forward between

117

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

the tables carrying a jug. Glasses were raised. She
bent her head, smiled and nodded. The light from a
swinging lamp fell on her shoulders.

•They'll ask her to sing," I expect. "See— there's
the sergeant-major going up to her."

An interval was filled by the pianist with a render-
ing of "The Long, Long Trail."

"I hate that bloody wail,' said some one near by.

"There's a certain crude melancholy in it," said
Mack, "and in other popular songs."

"We are poor in our pleasures."

"This is comfort, not pleasure. We are ccmiforting
ourselves."

When we had all sung "The Long, Long Trail," sev-
eral heads were turned towards the French ladies to
see if they were much impressed.

The next song was a pleasant surprise. The old
Frenchman suddenly removed his clay pipe from his
mouth and stood up, still smiling. He began to sing
before we well knew what he was about, and only after
the noise had been hushed could we hear him. It was
evidently a comic song, for he laughed at it himself,
and the ladies giggled behind the bar. Yet it was very
different from any English song, with its adventurous
phrases and repetitions and its ceaseless prattle of
words, which appeared more important than the tune.
The song had several verses very entertaining to the
ear, thought not to the imderstanding : and it came to
an end as suddenly as it began^ We all applauded it

ii8

A CHRISTMAS

loudly, and called for more drinks. The old man sat
down and looked towards Madame of the estaminet,
as if for her approval.

"Now, perhaps, Mamselle will sing?" But appar-
ently the lady was shy. The next item was an honest
attempt by an N.C.O. to give a speech from Shakes-
peare, but his voice was scarcely strong enough to
command silence.

Men who were not drunk listened respectfully, and
a few with pleasure.

"My liege, I did deny no prisoners,
But I remember when the fight was done."

At first the majestical language fell on our ears only
as wind in the rigging of our minds. "It's no use," I
thought ; "we are no longer heroical, why disturb us
with old achievements impossible to repeat." But the
closing lines had a kind of appropriateness.

''And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise,
And that it was great pity — so it was —
This villainous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly **

The clinking of glasses continued, and the plates of
cigarettes were becoming empty. "Parmaceti for ab-
dominal cases," said Mack as if making a mental noto,

119

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

• • • "Trony and Heroism go band in hand now*
There has been no m^ patriotic song. . . ."

Then some one in front said, **Thft French lady is
going to sing! the French lady!" Necks were craned.
The hubbub and the snatches of conversation died
down. Suddenly a woman's voice leaped like a thin
flame into the air» and every one held thdr breath.
We could not see the singer from where we sat. She
was singing like a lost souL It was the Marseillaise.

We knew the tune well enough and used to whistle
it on the march, but none of us had heard it from
French voices.

Now we seemed to hear it for the first time, from
this mysterious woman. I rose with others and pene-
trated into the room.

The other two women had joined in and the three
were standing tc^ether behind the bar. The old man
stood up, too, and was beating time with his day pipe.
Some new spirit had seized us all. It was nothing of
comfort or pleasure, heroism or romance. We were
on our feet to the real thing at last, to something dy-
namic and intangible behind which we dimly saw Ihe
motives of our own hard lives. We roared the cho:us
to syllables of our own, and when the women had fin-
ished the applause was deafening. I seemed to hest^
remote voices shouting through mine, "Dans le coeur
je vous porte . . . Frangais . . . savoir faire mu-
sic des revolutions. ..." We clapped and shouted
continuously, and many men pressed round the bar.

120

A CHRISTMAS

But she would not sing again, and continued, with
faint color in her cheeks, to serve at the tables.

Many songs followed, but to none was such an ova-
tion given* The noise and moist tumult increased,
and men began to sing songs on their own account.
The concert songs became increasingly difficult to hear.
The quintette sang their "Comrades' Song of Hope"
with spirit and were well applauded. We were glad
we had not r,ehearsed against difficulties in vain.

The sergeant-major looked at his watch and allowed
a last song. "YouVe all given us a fine time," said a
friend, leaning against the door post. "Sergeant," said
another friend, leaning against the first, "Teddy's that
wild — ^he shaved his nose this morning by mistake,
and we tell him he'll have to go on shaving it."

"Good-night, Sergeant You're not drunk in the
Army if you can lie on the ground and not fall off
. . . it's a great test ... the ground."

Mil

CHAPTER VII

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

''Phantoms of countless lost.

Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions.
Follow me ever— desert me not while I live.

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love.
Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers.
Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with
tender pride.

Perfume all—make all wholesome.
Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,
O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry."

Whitman.

THE field with the single poplar was like an Elysian
field in the evening sun. The blue ordiises
trembled youthfully. The cuckoo flowers shook their
delicate petals in the breeze, and if you stood and
looked wastward across the field, each blade of grass
shone a golden green and left a tiny shadow behind it.
The breeze, mild but persistent, carried to the nos-
trils the very breath of existence. As every color of
the spectnun combines to form daylight, so e^ery nat-
ural odor seemed here combined to form the smell of
iQ)ring, unfathomable promise, earth with still a thou-

122

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

sand summers in her breast. The breeze had turned a
windmill all day on top of the opposite hill, and as I
looked towards it I seemed to catch the smell of fresh-
ly-ground flour. Other scents were discernible. The
young leaves of the elms, the maturer leaves of the
poplars, the hawthorn, the larches on Mont Noir, the
plum blossom, the wood smoke from cottage chimneys,
the stables, the farms and the pasture lands all yielded
something to be carried away by the breeze and
mingled in a common breath. It was the last con-
vincing message to the most delicate of the senses that
summer had fully come, eternally richer than our
dreams ; and with summer a mutual labor for Nature
and Man, a mutual joy.

Standing thus in the wind's eye and the sun's, all
objects seemed perceived directly by the senses, and
all were equally penetrated and transfused by light.
But when I turned with my back to the sun to retrace
my steps a change took place. The beauty was as
great, but quite different. Instead of an equal glory
and transparence, the million little surfaces of field
and tree now reflected the light and showed each its
particular shape and color. They all shone and shiv-
ered and drew attention to themselves. "Look, I am
a blade of grass." "Look, I am a willow leaf," they
now seemed to cry. But before they had been one.
voice, "Look at the sun through me. Look at the sun
through me."

I followed my shadow back across the field in the

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

direction of the town where we were billeted. The
town also stood on a hill looking across to Mont Noir,
and in its degree now made its contribution of shape
and color to the scene. A hundred dormer windows
winked from the tiled roofs. Lilac bushes peeped over
garden walls ; the gold weather-cock burned like a star
above the Flemish belfry. The eye ran over surfaces
of brown brick or gray masonry, dropped into shad-
ows, or recognized f amilar buildings between clouds
and trees with satisfaction.

The little city had been built when men still took
joy in the forms they created, and the harmony of
these forms with the forms of Nature around them
was not due to a trick of moonlight but was unanswer-
able in the full light of day. And this harmony was
not the work of one great mind, artist's or architect's,
but the work of numerous common minds who had
here made plans, raised scaffolds, baked bricks, learned
the angles of roofs from the weight of tiles, the heights
of towers by the strength of masonry, learned to cor-
rect and to improve through the generations, learned
above all to omit the ugly and increase the harmonious.

Neither was the result that of the inspiration of a
single genius, but of the continual discrimination of
lesser minds, but the result was good. What beauty,
therefore, must lie in the common minds of men. I
tried to turn in thought to the source of that beauty,
and immediately from the past there reached the nos-

124

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

trils of my mind another gale of summer, compound-
ed from all the hopes, aspirations and joys of men's
minds, seeds dropped from old achievements in per-
eiUiial blossom, the rich various foliage of elder gien-
erations unseen but fruitful.

From where I stood I could see one of the main
streets leading up the hill between the houses. Little
figures stood at their doors or went busily to and fro.
Presently I reached the foot of the hill and ascended
it as the sun set.

I entered the portal of a massive Louis XIV house,
used at that time for a divisional rest station, and
crossed the court to the kitchens. Here one of the
cooks was preparing a meal for the night-orderlies and
another was sprinkling sand on the paved floor. A
lamp hung from the ceiling, for the place was dark
even in daytime. A sound of feet on the boards and
the noise of a gramophone could be heard from the
sergeants' mess above. I ran up the dark winding
stairs and discovered Sparky and Big Harry playing
crib and very gravely moving their match-stalks up
their markers. Little Harry stood at the gramophone.
He held a record in his hand under the light, and
gazed at it curiously. "There was a chap in here the
other day," he said, "who said he could read the music
off a record by looking closely at it. He said it was
a gift ... the hell of a gift."

"Get away," said 3parky.

"But I don't know that I believe him," said Little

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

Harry dreamily. He was listening to his favorite rec-
ord, "Less than the Dust."

Steps came bounding up the stairs, and Adam en-
tered glowing with beer and with life. He swore a
Dumfries oath at the gramophone and tore off ''Less
than the Dust.'' Then shuffling the records like a
pack of cards, he found his favorite and started it.

"Here's a song for ye. None of your stale Eng-
lish. A Scotch song, my boy."

It was "Jock of Hazeldean."

"What are the words, Adam?" He gave me a
scornful glance as at an ignoramus.

" 'Why weep ye by the tide, ladie- . . .' They only
give three verses, and there ought to be four."

"Who's it by?"

"By Rob TannahiU."

"I think if s by Walter Scotf

"Rob TannahiU."

"Walter Scott."

"How much?"

"Tuppence."

"Ill hold the money," said Sparky.

The only references near by was a volume of Scotch
songs on a shelf, left there by the last mess. The
problem was left in doubt between Walter Scott and
Rob TannahiU, and the money went very pleasantly in
drinks to all present.

The gramophone continued joyfully, and I foi^t
about the elysian field.

126

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

I slept in an attic near by, where the night-orderlies
slept in the da3rtime. A skylight just overhead
dripped when it rained. The place seemed haunted by
the dusty ghosts of old travelling-trunks, and the
Louis XIV door would not close properly. I tied it
with a piece of string because of a certain Louis XIV
rat who was wont to trot up and down the corridor
at night making as much noise as a dog, and who on
one occasion had put a paw under this door and rattled
it

Just before falling asleep I remembered the elysian
field. Then the mixed events of past hours faded out
into sleep.

I woke just before midnight, and fell to coughing.
Before I was fully awake I heard some one coughing
in the next attic; and almost immediately became
aware of an evil Something in my throat, in the room,
in the corridor. A night-orderly with a flickering lamp
came along, and the word Gas was passed from mouth
to mouth.

Then it seemed that every one in every place was
suddenly awake and apprehensive.

Rising, I put my head out of the skylight. It was
quite dark outside. I felt the breeze, felt its gentle
persistence. In a moment of real horror I realized
that it was the evil thing which had awakened me from
sleep.

The moment of panic passed, but the reflections that
followed were worse. A gas attack was in progress.

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

We knew what that meant; knew what it meant to
hundreds at that moment. But our own discomfort
was like a hideous newly-discovered clue, impossible
to forget, leading us to the trenches, five miles away.

I remembered the breeze of the night before. Then
it had meant Life. Now it meant Death. Compelled
against my will I again put out my head into the
darkness.

Powers of Satan, intangible and hideous evil, have
you achieved thus far, to use for your own purposes
the wind that bloweth where it listeth! The impres-
sion of Evil was now as real and as complex as that
other of Good had been. The senses were struck as
by a blow; yet the blow persisted and penetrated.
There came upon them the conviction of corrosion
and active destruction and at the same time of some-
thing slow and subtle— the conviction of poison.
Both curiosity and dread were provoked. The smell
brought recollections of hospital, workshop, labora-
tory. It conveyed the indoor sweat of alchemists and
brewers of potions. It had come over hills and woods,
it had swept the countryside, yet seemed to emerge
only from the lungs of Hell.

Meanwhile a familiar sound reached our ears: the
rapid thunderous noise of many guns in action. A
bombardment was in process. How often had we
heard the sound before. But on this night it spoke
with a special voice. It was the g^wl of one Devil
recognizing another.

1^8

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

I withdrew my head into the room. In the cough-
ing silence there seemed a moment when the delicate
sense of smell, capable of the rarest suggestion and
association, revealed a mysterious malicious Hatred
astride of the world.

The sound and the smell mingled together. Who
had labored with test-tubes, who had threaded laby-
rinths to achieve thisf Who had yielded to unholy
spells? Who had gone blind? Who had spent whole
lives of secret labor to produce this the voice of Death,
the smell of Ghaos?

Here was the achievement of the indifferent mad
strifes and vanities, old failures revenged, and ani-
mosities of men, gathered out of the unswept mad-
house of the htunan mkid.

Next morning the sun shone and bacon frizzled
for breakfast. The aspect of the world was un-
changed. But every one talked of the gas attack and
compared symptoms. At breakfast it took its place
along with other important subjects.

^^If it was like that with us, what was it like up in
the trenches?" said Bill.

"I can see I'm going to lose an hour's leave with
this daylight bloody saving bill," said Pite sleepily.

"That was just the wind for a gas attack — ^about
five miles per hour," said the Motor-Transport ser-
geant.

Orderly-sergeant Jim, feeling inquisitive, turned

i2g>

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

to the sergeant-major. "Are you expecting any ord-
ers then, Sergeant-Major?"

Sei^eant-Major Jack got up and seized his immacu-
late belt, while Joe the servant brushed an invisible
speck from his arm. He assumed an enigmatic
smile. "Who says the Division's going to the Portu-
guese front?" Then he dashed out.

"The last rumor hasn't been cancelled yet," said
Mack. He turned to me and resumed, "If in the
course of your morning's work you should find your-
self near my dispensary, it will be worth your while
to come in and see my sterilizer and other polished
instruments. They are quite dull this morning.
They've been oxidized by the chlorine last night.
Charles is now polishing them. But you'll see the re-
sult unmistakably."

"An invitation from the Dispenser is as good as a
command," I murmured, and went out.

The sun sparkled on the busy scene in the court
A water-cart drawn by mules came clattering through
the gateway.

Patients in flannel pyjamas came down the steps
from the house smoking cigarettes.

"After all," I thought, "last night was only another
eventless incident, like so many in war, without re-
sult save a few more deaths of unknown persons, a
few more among so many, forgotten two meals hence."

"Or will there be a sequel?"

The divisional rest station was a hive of indust^
130

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

subdivided into many parts. In the field behind the
hospital the tent lines were having their morning's in-
spection, and Sergeant-Major Jack stopped an order-
ly and pointed to a cigarette-end. Cigarette-ends were
crimes. The crime was removed.

"Remove a cigarette-end when you see one, and
keep the British Army in the field in health; is that
not so. Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir," I replied.

The general duty orderly sighed and continued his
work. Presently he looked up and saw the sergeant-
major had gone. "Have you noticed. Sergeant," said
he, "what a number of swallows have come out this
morning? There's been a great increase in them these
last few days."

But I pointed sternly to another cigarette-end.

My duties carried me from place to place, and
every one was in high good humor. The May sun-
light penetrated everyrwhere. In the garden outside
the dispensary the lilac was in full bloom. I went
up the steps leading to the glass doors of a large room
which was used as the dispensary and receiving-room.
Within I found Charles, who looked at me with his
usual surly friendliness.

"Look here," said he, pointing to the instruments
he had been trying to polish, "as if I had nothing
better to do than to polish up after gas attacks."

I gazed curiously at the direct evidence of what
the sunshine bade me believe was but a nightmare.

131

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

I went out and down past the lilac bush and turned
into the court. Descending some steps into a base-
ment floor, I found Private Nethersole hard at work
on what he termed his Chinese laundry. He had
scores of patients' kilts beside him, and a table in
front of him. He took the kilts one by one and ex-
plored the pleats carefully, having a special object in
view, opening them out and then ironing them into
position again. He wore a large pair of spectacles,
and explored with minute care.

He nodded to me, and I went through into another
basement room where Private Joseph the carpenter
worked. I asked him to lend me his saw. He was
very unwilling to part with it, or indeed with any
instrument of his craft. But I wanted his saw, for it
was the only sharp one in the Ambulance. He was
very busy making hospital furniture out of bacon
boxes, and he asked how he could continue his work
without his tools. When I promised to bring the saw
back within half an hour he allowed me to take it^
and I climbed the steps again to the court.

I rejoined my squad in the field, and used the prec-
ious instrument with my own hand. The sharp teeA
bit into the wood and the sawdust flew. I forgot
everything but the joy of working rapidly with a good
instrument.

Then some one stood beside me, between me and
the Sim. I heard that I was wanted by the orderly-
sergeant. I turned and went across the field towards

132

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

the hospital, meeting another messenger on the way.
Then the sergeant-major himself came round a cor-
ner and hailed me. I held Joe's saw in my hand.

"Sergeant, take a squad over at once to the Casualty
Qearing Station. Here's a list of men. Party re-
quired at once to help with gas patients. Though why
we should supply parties to every blinking medical
unit in Flanders is more than I can say, but look
sharp." And he hurried away leaving the list of men
in my hands.

So there is to be a sequel after all.

In the court of the Casualty Clearing Station, be-
tween the lime trees, marquees had been pitched with-
out side curtains. Beneath them their clean floor-
boards made a continuous wooden platform. When
we arrived and reported for duty, everything was in
readiness, but the Ambulance cars had not yet ar-
rived. A group of orderlies, laughing and chatting,
waited at the main entrance. They were to unload
as quickly as possible.

I went up to Sergeant Rivers, a regular and one of
the ward masters. He was standing then in his shirt-
sleeves.

"The worst of it is there's so little to do for them,"
he said. By them he meant gas patients.

"What's the new treatment?" I asked. He told
me, and added, "We have oxygen for them." I
'ooked at him enviously. He had his profession at his

133

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

back. He had seen death and disease in many lands,
and could nurse a ward of typhoid unaided. Beside
him I was a mere amateur.

But Sergeant Rivers, unlike many regulars, had
preserved a certain kindliness and openness of mind,
which accompanied his strenuous qualities. I felt
glad that he was on duty with us.

"Here they come," he said. I turned and saw a
motor-ambulance come down the slope under the lime
trees. Another followed it and then another. They
drew up in turn at the main entnmce. Immediately
a couple of officers came out.

An hour later the floors of the marquees had been
more than half covered with men on stretchers put
close together side by side. Their faces were in
shade, but their boots projected in rows into the sun-
light. Each pair of legs was divided from its neigh-
bour by a little heap of patient's equipment. Over
legs and equipment the shadows played from the lime
branches overhead. There was a continual twitter-
ing of birds in these branches, but also there was an
undertone coming continually from under the mar-
quees: an undertone that presently became too fa-
miliar to notice. An orderly came out from one of
the marquees with an empty bottle in one hand and a
measuring glass in the other, and went across to the
door of the dispensary for more of the mixture he
was administering. One group of marquees con-
tained slight cases: another group contained serious

134

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

cases. Now and then among the slight cases some
conversation breaks out, but is drowned in the noise
of coughing. An orderly threads his way among them
with a basket of oranges. He passes another orderly
coming out, and they exchange mournful glances;
then one of them stoops and helps to bolster up a
struggling patient into a sitting position.

What is it that for once has frightened the general
duty orderlies out of their accustomed chatter?

Among the serious cases two hospital nurses are
quietly moving about, administering a treatment.
Whenever a dose or an injection is given a little label is
affixed to the patient. In course of time a patient be-
comes covered with little labels, and thus covered,
many are removed from time to time to the mortuary.

A surgeon, young in years but old in experience,
strode across the court. He began to help with the
serious cases. He felt the pulse of one man who had
rolled off his stretcher and was staring at the sun.
With a jerk of his arm the surgeon ordered him to be
removed.

Another surgeon stands near the new arrivals. He
is deciding whether they are slight or serious cases,
and with a look of benevolent stoicism he assigns them
to one group of marquees or the other, to Purgatory
or Hades.

The unloading squad worked busily. They raised
the flaps of each ambulance in turn and withdrew the
stretchers carefully one by one, while the car throbbed

135

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

lazUy and the driver in front, with eyes heavy with
dust and lack of sleep, gazed vacantly in front of
him.

After awhile the cars came less frequently, and at
length the sound of their wheels on the gravel ceased
altogether. The work grew lighter, and then I real-
ized the force of Sergeant Rivers' complaint that there
was so little to be done for gas patients. In conse-
quence there was less occupation to distract the mind
from the vision of unnatural suffering that presented
itself. The spectacle of the whole crowd thus stricken
and laboring became more painful than we cared to
admit to ourselves. The fresh air that passed in and
out of our own lungs carelessly sustaining life and
health seemed only a traitor to them. As though
they had lately played with witchcraft and seen some
ihagician face to face. Nature herself had turned from
them and withheld all that she knew so well how to
give. Only the dead had an enviable oblivious ex-
pression.

The shadows of the leaves continued to play over
the feet of patients and over the faces of those who
lay outside the marquees. The early May sunshine
mocked them. The arrowy swallows mocked them;
as they darted in and out of the limes, threading airy
circles. Above the swallows, an aeroplane mounted
high in the air, filling the sky with its hum, and pre®-'
ently disappeared from view. The leaves of the t&iied^
divided two worlds.

136

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

It occurred to me that perhaps some of us here,
some who had led sheltered lives before the war,
might never have seen death until active service had
made it familiar. Certainly some of us had led
sheltered lives!

A little procession was crossing the court, two
bearers with a stretcher between them and a brown
form on the stretcher. They drew near to the mortu-
ary door and entered it.

Th^i in the sunlight I remembered the ugly vision
of the night before, as of some Evil Thing abroad in
the darkness. That had been the reality. The Ely-
sian field was only a dream.

I caught sight of Sergeant Rivers later on in the
afternoon, and went over to him. His work had
slowed down, and he stood looking across his patients.
I was surprised to find him strangely moved. I stood
beside him for a moment, 'when he turned and spoke.
He finished by saying, "This kind of thing makes me
want to suffer everything for every one." Something
of the kind was in my own mind, but I did not feel
surprised at his words at the time. His face was no
further commentary. He took a piece of lint and
carefully wiped the lips of a patient who was dying.
He stooped and felt his pulse. "I give him half an
hour to live," he said, and turned away.

A patient, who lay at the end of one of the mar-,
quees, asked me to write a postcard to his home for
him. He dictated it slowly. As I took down his

J3Z

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

words two ofEcers passed near-by, and snatches of
their conversation reached us. The patient beside me
finished dictating the address and paused in thought.
The voice of one of the officers came towards us —

"You must remember that these men have dis-
obeyed orders. They have been caught without their
gas-helmets. They are repeatedly warned. It is im-
possible to guard them against themselves. There's
no death on this occasion among the officers/'

His companion fficked a small stone with his cane.
They stood for a while and then returned whence
they had come. The patient beside me was talking
slowly, as if he had not heard, and still hesitating
what he should say to his wife. I continued to look
at the address, which told of a town in the midlands.

"Of course," said he, bringing out his words pain-
fully, "I don't want to say aught to frighten her — see.
Of course I don't feel so bad — ^not now. But it were
awful at first. And I couldn't lay hold of my gas-
helmet for the moment — ^see. I were reading letters
from home and all. It were my fault, of course. Ay
— could ye give me my pack to rest my head against?
That's better. Ay — ^it were my fault: and now I've
to pay for it."

I couldn't help wondering whether the punishment
fitted the crime.

"I dunno what to say. She's that tender-hearted,"
he repeated, and continued to ftunble about on his
stretcher. I was sitting beside him for a long while,

138

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD

and together we decided on a message that would be
suitable. Then I left him and posted the card. He
was one of those who recovered sufficiently during the
course of the day to be sent another stage down the
line. Others like him gradually won ease and some
relief from their suffering. But others declined and
died.

The N.CO. in charge of the mortuary counted his
coffins.

Late the same evening I walked again in the field
with the single poplar. Our squad had been relieved
at the C.C.S., and I had found my way to the field
almost without choice.

The same cuckoo flowers were older by a summer
day. The grasses were a day nearer hay-time. But
whatever form death took for them it troubled them
not. There was no sign but the same sign of joy in
a rich process of life. Even as I walked I began to
forget the horror of the day. Life itself seemed to
mean f orgetfulness. Yet it was not that those events
were unreal. They were still part of me, part of my
consciousness.

Compensation was the word, not forgetfulness, I
thought.

Elysian fields was an idea of our ancestors for those
who died in turmoil. And this was my Elysian field.

My mind began to right itself like a good ship. But
what of those other minds, those who had apparently

139

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

gone down lost in foul seas alone ? For a moment the
beauty of the earth darkened in a grin of mockery.
But a voice cried, "Face it. Face that fact."

My mind stretched out desperate arms seeking an
idea, a link. Why should I be here in my Elysian
field, quite naturally regaining health and strength;
and why should not they be in theirs?

What were those words of Sergeant Rivers? What
was the instinctive thought that underlay them, shared
by us both at the moment they were spoken? I recol-
lected it as this: that if we could by some natural
miracle have reached them in their suffering we
should have done so at all costs, at all risks. It was
not only a thought: it was a desire.

But in the perfection of Thought, in God, why not
attribute the same desire? What if that unison is
already achieved, most truly and most powerfully?

"Phantoms of countless lost."

Perhaps they are here indeed! Perhaps we have
never been separated ! I tried with an effort to think
away the natural forms before me, but in vain. The
sun found my eyes. The breeze dwelt with its sweet
persistence upon my senses, pleading for peace. It
seemed that these familiar forms extended also into
infinity. "Believe in us," they whispered, "and be-
lieve that God will not abuse his own Consciousness."

But it was only in Heaven that I recognized the full
fact of Hell.

140

CHAPTER VIII

THREE WOMEN

••Beyond the sphere which spreads to widest space
Now soars the sigh that my heart sends above ;
A new perception born of grieving Love
Guideth it upwarxl the untrodden ways.
When it hath reached unto the end and stays.
It sees a lady round whom splendors .move
In homage; till by the great light thereof
Abashed the pilgrim spirit stands at gaze.
It sees her such, that when it tells me this
Which it hath seen, I understand it not,
It hath a speech so subtile and so fine.
And yet I know its voice within my thought
Often remembereth me of Beatrice:
So that I understand it, ladies mine."

Vita Nuova.

MARIE JOSEPH was a slim, demure girl whose
head was bent like a nun's. Her shrine was hef
father's estaminet and I was her devotee. For the
space of four days she had my active service heart.

We had come from a land of mud, back to hard
roads and firm turf. We arrived late one afternoon
in a little village where the old shop windows gleamed
invitingly, where the blacksmith's hammer was heard
in the streets, and where a choice of several estamin-
ets lay before us for an evening meal. On such occa-
sions Providence guides her children. Her emissary

141

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

was Mack, who met me in tiie street He had come
before us on the billeting party and had been in the
place two hours, so that he already possessed all es-
sential information. He knew the quality of the
beer, he knew where the brigade post-office was, he
knew the schoolmistress, he could tell you where you
were billeted, he could tell you how near the nearest
canteen and mess was, and much else beside. He
desired eggs and chips himself and took me straight
to the estaminet of Marie Joseph's father. While
our meal was in progress Mack was relating one of
his petites histoires philosophiques, and then it was that
I first noticed Marie Joseph crossing the parlor, her
whole lithe activity subdued to a glass of beer which
she carried very carefully indeed so as not to spill one
drop.

There were several men in khaki in the room.
Having delivered the glass she seemed to fade and
melt between them and reappear as if by magic be-
hind her counter.

I went up to the counter and stood with others.
When I spoke French to her she scarcely raised her
head, but, with her hand on the beer-tap, she raised
her brows, and suddenly uncurtained her gray eyes.
For a moment only I felt her inscrutable gaze and tiiea
she continued filling the glasses. But the effect was
startling. It was as though she had said, **You think
me a child, but really I am older even than you."

I returned to my seat with two glasses, one for

142

THREE WOMEN

Mack and one for myself. But somehow a change had
occurred. It was as if the values of common things,
of eggs and chips> of beer and brown walls, of men's
hats and women's aprons, had undergone a change of
pitch.

Her eyes had been inquiring, contemplative, kind,
but I thought they had also shown a kind of grave
mockery.

Was it so or not?

For several evenings I had occasion to observe her.

She seemed to have no particle of vanity. From
habit she held in her chin, and few observed the deli-
cacy of her features. She seemed able to make her-
self plain or pretty at will. She moved with habitual
gentleness but her unconscious movements were swift
as a cat's. On one occasion one of her small sisters
who was playing between the tables fell over the legs
of a tall soldier. The child gave a little squeal and
her elder sister was bending over her, after a move-
ment round the counter almost too swift to follow.

She was not more than seventeen, yet her address
was perfect. In the bare parlor of the estaminet she
could cross the floor, turn or stand still suddenly in
the center of the room with as much finesse as the most
finished actress.

In the daytime she braided the hair of innumerable
small sisters. She mended, cooked, washed for them.
One day about eleven o'clock I came across her on
her knees in front of the estaminet, scrubbing the

143

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

pavement, apparently the least noticeable of little per-
sons, dressed in a gray overall. But the evening was
her time of recreation. She made no difiFerence in her
attitude to the boys who filled the estaminet and her
small sisters, except that the boys amused her more.
It was as if the idea of us amused her. She distin-
guished between us, overheard our remarks, and re-
plied to our sallies, or not, as she wished. A question
asked with the first beer might not be answered till
the second, and then, having stood with a finger on
the table for a fraction of a second, she would dis-
appear suddenly. She had a dimple at the comers of
her mouth. Her lips would remain demure, but the
little shadow each side would deepen and her eyes
would betray that she was laughing.

An old man sat by the stove as a rule, smoking his
clay pipe and interjecting remarks, but Marie's aunt,
when she was present, filled all lulls in the conversa-
tion with her voice. The aunt was very short and
sturdy, and had a habit of carrying on her conversa-
tion uninterruptedly from every room in the house in
turn.

Once she brought me my coffee instead of Marie,
and I replied, "Merci, Madame."

"Non Madame — ^Mamselle," said the old man at
the stove, correcting me. I apologized to Mamselle.
but at the same time I happened to catch sight of
Marie. I saw that the little shadows each side of her
mouth had stolen to her lips. . « .

144

THREE WOMEN

''Madame apres la guerre," she said, and, with some
needle-work in her fingers, gave me a look from her
eyelids full of the gentlest but wickedest amusement.

Poor old Madame Apres-la-Guerre, with a voice
like wedding bells on the gramophone, could yet cook
eggs and fry potatoes in oil, to a high degree of per-
fection. She was very stout and energetic but tr6s
aimahle, and need not have despaired of a husband
even at her mellow age. I never fathomed Marie's
joke. But I never fathomed Marie herself.

She had one favorite among us — 2, machine-gunner.
As soon as he entered she had observed him, and
when he had taken his seat she was standing at his
side. She carried him his beer with even greater
care, and with eyes glued to the glass.

'Tfou are ze machine-gun boy, n'est-ce pas? You
go pop, pop, pop," and for once I saw her throw back
her head and laugh.

He was a very ordinary red-cheeked fellow. He
laughed with her and replied, **Yes, Mary — ^pop, pop,
pop— bang — ^na pou!"

Many others joined in the laugh, but she had
slipped from among us in an instant. We all treated
her in an excellent brotherly fashion, yet quite failed
to recognize her. But she could rebuke us without
raising her voice.

What was this Fragonard doing among "Boers
drinking"? I asked myself in vain. I would imagine
her out of her plain gray dress and in that pretty one

145

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

the girl wears in "The Music Lesson." In imagina-
tion I set her in the way of that sweet Intoxication
proper to her youth and beauty. I watched her in a
ball-room, witfi a single bright thing in her hair,
choosing exactly what partners she wished. I watched
her on a summer evening at a chateau window opening
on to steps, with a man, her match, at her side, and a
long Louis Quinze mirror in the gloom behind her.

Yet I knew my curiosity was in vain.

I could never imagine those profound eyes dis-
turbed; their purity was invincible, their wisdom all-
sufficing. Wit, challenge, and the mind of youth, the
alchemy of great music, the fine intelligence of sense,
was it possible she knew all these things already?
Was it possible she had achieved them by some mys-
terious process, here in this estaminet, as a great
thinker cloistered from the world may achieve experi-
ence? If not, how was she so calm, so wise? Why
was humanity so obviously to her a dear familiar, in-
corrigible phenomenon to be served, yet laughed at,
yet loved — at seventeen.

Mystery! She moved before me as completely a
mystery as if I had at last seen a ghost. Alas, that

she must ever remain so!

I never saw Ada of Enfield in my life. But one
summer afternoon she revealed herself to us from a
little gray heap of her own letters by no greater in-
cantation than that of her own ill-formed hand-writ-

146

THREE WOMEN

ing; and to some at least among those who perceived
her she remains a revelation and a friend.

Archy had been very busy one afternoon in the
dressing-station, cleaning and tidying everything for
which he believed himself responsible. Then he took
a broom and labored to make the yard outside surgi-
cally clean. During these eflForts he had found the
letters in an old tin used as a dust-bin. What had
prompted him to rescue them, how through so many
vicissitudes the sheets had clung together without a
fastening of any kind, and how up to that moment
they had survived the zeal for cleanliness of succeed-
ing detachments occupying the dressing-station, re-
mained a mystery. They had undoubtedly been
dropped a month previously by a patient who had
come to the dressing-station and gone thence down the
medical line in an unknown condition.

And the sad presumption soon followed that his
condition was serious or he would not have allowed the
letters to escape him.

Later that afternoon I heard shouts of laughter
next door. I entered to find Archy ^reading something
aloud which appeared to fill him with unholy glee.
He began another letter as I entered. "My own dar-
ling sweetheart," he read in a high giggling voice, and
then dashed behind a table to avoid the assaults of
others inquisitive as himself. Chatham alone was un-
moved. He was cleaning the Primus stove very care-
fully. He suffered from deafness and probably did

147

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

not hear. Charles, who habitually wore an air of
contempt, snorted and looked at Archy, but did not
conceal his anxiety for him to continue. I was going
through a list of equipment One or two other men
were in the room, but none of us could avoid listen-
ing to Archy's excited voice even if we had wished.
Bursts of laughter followed certain passages, and
jokes and comments flowed freely.

Chatham looked up. '*What is he reading?*' he
said to me in his slightly sepulchral voice.

"Love letters," I said.

Just then a hush came, in which Archy read, *'I
treasure my dear little ring, and in wearing it always
think of him the giver."

Immediately there was a roar of laughter tailing off
into exclamations "Chriky!" "My frittered Aunt!"
"Strike me blindor

"What a shame," said Chatham, and bent again
over the Primus stove. "Why don't I stop it?" I
asked myself. "I'm not afraid to do so. What then?
Have I lost all nice feelings?"

Archy continued. He almost collapsed in giggling,
but recovered himself and stretched his arm out dra-
matically. He read, "I say, dear, you mustn't get cry-
ing; I can't bear to think of you like that, though
I should be the same. Leave the tears to us, dearie."

But the tumult that followed was less noisy. There
seemed half-heartedness and a note of shame in it I
felt a moment of rage.

148

THREE WOMEN

**What infernal sentimental rubbish," I said aloud.

But Archy continued remorselessly. Like a true
conjuror, he was not disturbed in the least by the
spells that began to grasp his audience. He continued
to laugh mischievously, ignoring the silence that be-
gan to settle upon us, for to those who listened it was
no longer merely food for laughter. We stood or sat
round in different attitudes, but all in concentrated
attention.

And gradually the mocking died away.

For what appeared before us in the littered room
was nothing less than the personality of the girl her-
self revealed by herself with as sure a touch as that
of any master of the human heart.

Her unselfishness, her vanity, her timidity in small
things, her courage in great, her simplicity and her
instinctive wisdom, her passionate affection and her
craving for any trifle in return, the sincerity of her
little confessions, her failure to be resigned in separa-
tion, her profound tenderness, were all there to be
'recognized by each one of us who had remained a
human being.

Oh! they were nothing but the common bundle of
wares with which the ordinary young woman attracts
the ordinary yoimg man. But we were ordinary
yoimg men isolated from home. Our hearts were
rapidly hardening in the life we led; and now the
singular familiarity and completeness of the vision
before us caused something of a ferment within.

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FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

There was everything we knew In it — the fortune-
teller's nonsense, the sentimental quotation, the lines
from the music-hall song. There were the characters
we knew, her girl friends gossiping, her father with
the big tea-cup for himself, her mother in the back-
ground to whom she confided much but not all, the
other men to whom she now wrote no more, and the
other woman.

A situation, familiar also, had arisen between her-
self and her lover, and she had dealt with it straight-
forwardly with instinctive cleverness, but with ter-
rible anxiety. In the vision we had of her, our minds
regained awhile the purity of hers: but with the purity
the pain also. For everywhere she showed the sad
half-knowledge that she was more sensitive than her
lover and therefore capable of the greater suflFering.
We recognized in our own hearts that she had reasons
for her fear. She described herself "true as steel."
We knew that she was so.

It was as if she had shown herself to us by a ges-
ture of her whole being. All the features of her mind
were before us. What wonder if we almost per-
ceived her physically. Once, indeed, it seemed that
a woman in very truth had entered the room. It
seemed as if she stood opposite to Archy and tried to
plead against his reading.

But by then we could no more have stopped him
than the thirsty can stop drinking.

When he finished there was silence. Then Charles,

150

THREE WOMEN

usually the fiercest and most misanthropic of youths,
said quietly, "I wish I had a girl who'd write to me
like that."

Chatham had risen. He went over to Archy, who
was still chtickling to himself, and said, "Give them
to me." Archy gave them up, and he put them in his
pocket

"He's goin' oflF alone with them. He wants them
himself/' jeered Archy, and ran out.

Next day Chatham and I were sitting alone together
under an apple tree watching a German aeroplane.
Every one said it was a German, though it was so
tiny a speck that it was only just discernible in the
sky. "There's a gunner over the road," I said, "who
says he can always tell a Hun aeroplane by its volup-
tuous flight. Does that look voluptuous?" But Chat-
ham, instead of repl3ring, began feeling in his pockets.
"What about these letters ?" he said. "They're damned
odd ; I hardly know what to make of them."

"I don't, either."

"Of course they're crude, sentimental, ill-written —
a shop girl's, I suppose. But I can't get away from
them. Forgive me if I talk of myself."

Chatham was the mildest of egoists. He was the
most truly unselfish man I had ever met. In the
course of two years I had never noticed him perform
a single act to benefit himself alone, and he was con-
tinually doing things for other people. He was a man

iSi

FIELDS AND BATTLEFI ELDS

of means, and education. He hobnobbed and drank
with men of every standing in the ambulance and
spent his money on any one he happened to be with
at the time. His manner to all was the same, con-
siderate and courteous even to the point of the deferen-
tial. But though he was truly unselfish his conversa-
tion was always about himself. Yet it was interesting,
for though he was not apparently reserved, he never be-
came stale or over-familiar, and remained for most of
us something of a mystery.

Now as he spoke in the detached manner of the
deaf, he bent his head occasionally ; or would rise
from his seat under the apple tree, walk to and fro
and sit down again abruptly.

"Of course, I'm not saying they're a human docu-
ment or anything of that sort, but they're a kind of
milestone that shows me how far I am from — from
home.

"I didn't hear them being ready by Archy — ^not
much of them — I'm a bit deaf; but the way all the
fellows quieted down was remarkable, eh? What
I mean to say, I'm not a callous sort of fellow, and
I'll tell you this — ^taking leave of his wife is the
hardest thing a man has to do in this war — don't you
agree — what?

"I'm not a callous sort of fellow, and my wife and
I have asked a good deal from each other. Two
months ago I would have said we were ideally happy.
But in this sort of life — ^you know — one gets covered

IS»

THREE WOMEN

up. As if out here we were all walking about under
the same big blanket. Of course one writes and re-
ceives letters from home regularly — ^but there's the
trouble — ^letters are the trouble.

"What I mean to say is I can't write aflFectionately
to her if I'm not feeling it at the moment. And one
seems to feel less and less, to become a mere machine.
• . . Oh, I know it's all been said a dozen times."

"It's all part of the game," I said.

Qiatham did not hear, and went on as if to himself :

"And the worst of it was I was beginning not to
mind very much. When her letters came I read them
sternly, cursed the war, aiid wrote back priggishly."

He suddenly turned to me with a queer smile.

"You see from one point of view it's really rather
interesting."

"What is?"

"Why this — ^that in spite of all we believe to the
contrary; in spite of love, faithfulness, vows and the
rest — ^separation can separate. We knew it might for
others, but we did not believe it for ourselves. We
had been very close partners. You know the relation-
ship, perhaps. How could we not believe in each
other? But we were mistaken.

"No more intimacy now. I am free — ^really free.
As if I had never loved. We used to talk about be-
ing independent of each other, but we never meant
much by it. Well, we are independent now. She has
her war-work at home and I have my work. The

153

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

uses of our fives are unchanged. Only that we have
a recollection of happiness, we might as well never
have met.

''Sometimes"---he hesitated — ^"'it's as if she were
dead.

"I've been unhappy, but I can't remain so for long.
^ . . Yet I'm not a callous sort of fellow. . . .

"But what if she has been unhappy for a long
time without my knowing it. I seem to see it now in
her last letters, though I didn't yesterday. She does
not like to say so. She is rather puritanical. She
wants to save me all she can, so she becomes more and
more reserved."

"Reserve's a bloody tomb."

"It's a kind of conspiracy to save each other pain.
And what comes of it? Our letters become restrained.
. . . We become less and less real to each other, and
that hurts her more than ever."

He now pulled out the gray bundle of letters which
he had rescued from Archy the day before.

"I can see it now," he said, "these letters have given
me a due. Read them. Look there."

He pointed with the mouthpiece of his pipe to one
of the dirty pages, and I read —

"/ like it when you call me nice sweet names/'

At that moment a seventy-pounder in the field be-
hind us gave out its hideous double crack and the shell

154

THREE WOMEN

shrieked over our heads into the distance. I winced.

"Can it really be true?" I said, and Chatham divined
my question.

"Ah," he replied, "you, too, have strayed far. That
is what I have been asking myself since yesterday."

"They like it when we "

We looked at each other in wonder.

"I think it's tn^e," he said; "this girl writes what
my wife and yours would like to write but dare not.
Read the letters again. It's sacrilege, but still. . . .
That sentence is but one instance of many. Every-
where she expresses nothing less than the whole of
herself. It is not art or literature — ^it is simply the
truth. And the odd thing is she reminds me of my
wife."

I read the letters through while Chatham walked
up and down. There were one or two I had not heard
the day before.

As I read a grasshopper made a small noise in the
long grass. When I had finished I laid the letters on
the grass beside me.

"She reminds me of mine, too," I said.

"I think I'll write to my wife at once," said Chat-
ham.

"I think I'll write to mine, too," I said.

Chatham stooped and picked up the heap of letters
from the grass and put them in his pocket. Then
we went off in different directions.

When I write of Soeur Seline I am persuaded I

155

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

' ■ , *'■' ■ III — —

should approach my subject in prayer, compose on
my knees. Do not accuse me of fancies. To-day we
are specially in need of a higher journalism where
Truth is more obviously the end of research in im-
pressions and personal opinions more obviously but
contributions to that end. The vast phenomena of
modem life, so tempting to explore, need more than
ever the spirit of scholarship and less than ever the
spirit of mere adventure. He who without religion
would be a scholar of men and women must forfeit
one of the lamps provided for him and leave so fair
a missal as Sceur Seline unc^ned, tmread.

As a rule personality obtrudes itself and character
remains hidden. But with Sceur Seline the reverse
was the case. Her personality was elusive. She was
as shy as a girl of sixteen. She was by nature one
of those women who look much in a man's face and
reflect his expression in her own. But she had chosen
long ago to look upon the face of the Master of life
and held once for all a reflection of Him.

She lived in an Asile with other nuns of her sister-
hood engaged in a life of pure service. Their services
were known far and wide, for the insane of all na-
tionalities were supported here. When the Germans
entered Bailleul in 1914 they set a guard on the gates
and no molestation was permitted. The sisters con-
tinued their quiet ministrations, services were held as
usual night and day in the chapel, the inmates strolled
under leafy trees conscious of no delusions beyond

156

THREE WOMEN

their own. The AsUe is of vast extent. Lawns and
borders, avenues of trees and gardens are enclosed
within its grounds. Elms and beeches have over-
topped the tall mansard roofs, and in their branches
thrushes, old in song, repeat their vespers with the
chapel bell.

Soeur Seline was in charge of the laundry; a stately
building that appeared to have a park for a drying-
ground behind it. I visited her first in the company of
a friend. We knocked at the big door, each of us
with a homely bundle under his arm. She not only
washed but ironed and mended for soldiers, and would
not take payment. I was not prepared for such a
blanchisseus^. She stood listening to us with infinite
calm attention as we spoke. A pretty dark-haired
girl — a Belgian refugee — stood beside her, watchfully,
hand on hip; the old women with blue aprons who
worked in the laundry glanced at us over their shoul-
ders, the maiChihfcr^ made a spinning noise in the air :
but all wki iilsignificant beside this one woman's face,
and its revelation of quite other facts. She took us
into her own workroom, where the noise of machinery
could still be heard. She wished to show us her
creche. It was a few weeks after Qiristmas, and she
had made a big creche in the chapel with real straw
in it, but this smaller one was for the laundry "chil-
dren." It was a little toy stable and manger with
wooden figures and woolly lambs and a doll baby.
When the "children" in the laimdry were tired of

157

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

their work they could hobble in here and put the wool-
ly lambs and the shepherds into different positions, but
tihey were shy of touching the figure of the Madonna
or the doll child.

We crossed the grass to Ae diapel door. Soeur Se-
line was to show us the chapeL The sacristan, a very
old sister, bent with obeisance, and carrying a bunch
of huge keys, opened the door for us from the inside.
The chapel was remarkable for its unusual severity
and absence of decoration. The stations of the cross
were small paintings on copper fixed to the wall.
There were no aisles. The tall lancet vrindows gave a
subdued light through their stained glass. The sacred
lamp burned before the simplest of altars.

I looked carefully at one of the stations of the cross.
Soeiu- Seline, with her hands before her, looked up at
it too. It was the scene in which Christ, toiling with
His cross, stopped to wipe His face with the handker-
chief. I asked : ''Who was it who gave Him the hand-
kerchief ?" "Saint Veronica," said Soeur Seline.

Before another station, one representing the Cruci-
fixion, I asked: ''Who was the Roman soldier, ord-
ered to thrust the spear?" "Saint Longine," said
Soeur Seline. "Is it true," I asked, "that he under-
stood afterwards what he had done?" "It is true,"
said Soeur Seline. "He was forgiven; he became
Christian."

In one of the transepts she drew our attention to a
window representing her favorite saint But she her-

1^8

THREE WOMEN

self looked more saintly. She considered it quite
natural that religion should interest us. She answered
our questions as she would those of an inquisitive
child : and as she stood looking upwards under the win-
dow it was as if she was indeed our elder sister.

One thing about her puzzled me. There was some-
thing in her regard that struck me as familiar. Some
quality I had seen elsewhere; but where? Finally I
remembered. That look of patience I knew in some
soldiers who had grown old in discipline. Yes, old
Sergeant S. looked like that sometimes — he who be-
lieved he would die next time he went over the para-
pet.

I was not alone in yielding to Soeur Seline's influ-
ence. Others, both men and N.C.O.S, acknowledged
it in different ways. To a healthy individual such
mastery as hers in any region is interesting. She was
of a type fairly common in Catholic countries, but un-
familiar to the average town-bred Englishman. She
had that in her face that could be recognized as beauty
— ^that is to say, as that which attracts. I have often
thought how powerful, how popular a truly spiritual
appeal can be. It is not always remembered how near
Christ was to triumph on the day of His entry into
Jerusalem. It was as an individual of supreme spiri-
tual beauty that she attracted us. I believe it true to
say that we visited the laundry chiefly to see her. But
being English, we scarcely admitted it even to our-
selves. I had one friend who in the region of the

199

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

i ===== s===^=g

mind was possessed of devils. He had a genius for
soiling the most sacred subjects. I remember experi-
encing something like a shock on discovering that he
knew Soeur Seline^ and had known her for some time.
But he spoke a few words of simple admiration for
her such as I had seldom heard from him, and then
remained silent. Both his words and his unusual
silence impressed me.

Soeur Seline was good and holy, and austere tmlike
ourselves, but she had a simple heart like ourselves,
and that was one of the reasons of her appeal. This
simplicity is a characteristic of Christianity found spe-
cially in Christ Himself, but lost sight of continually
because it is the habit of priests to mistake simplicity
for stupidity. It is characteristic of this simplicity to
recognize at once the mastery of the Spirit when
brought into contact with it — ^a recognition not pri-
marily of its own weakness, but of its own ignorance.
The desire for knowledge, for leadership, is implied.
It is interesting that the simple imagery of the Roman
Church has its eflFects on ill-nourished English Protes-
tants. I know one personally, a sergeant, who was
led to think much on religion by the number of cruci-
fixes he saw, and who was confirmed while on active
service that he might take communion. The desire for
a true spiritual lead is here manifested; it is mani-
fested among us over and over again. The simple
heart has a peculiar discrimination of values in the
matter of the Spirit arising out of its own simplicity.

i6o

THREE WOMEN

We had already separated in our minds army chap-
lains, church parades, prayers for the Allies, from
that Spirit. It is manifested in that strange, shy
response among men of all kinds wherever the spirit
of Christ is truly shown, consciously or unconsciously.

The religious inheritance of a Catholic country,
touching all departments of life, is specially visible
in Flanders. Soeur Seline, herself a priestess, filled
every image with the Spirit of her Faith and taught
by the most powerful means.

It was the simplest of experiences to stand with her
before a crude picture of Christ's labor, and learn
from her the name of the woman who at such an hour
was His friend. It was the simplest of experiences
to see the portrait of the man who gave Christ His
death-wound, to see that he was a soldier, to learn
from her that he repented afterwards, that he was
forgiven and became a Christian. The simplest of
experiences, but in the presence of her to whom such
imagery was truth, one of the most profound.

i«i

CHAPTER IX

i
THE HIGHWAY

llere knights have clattered past, here pikemen prottd.
Here fainting pilgrims eastward not a few»
And shy, shade-lingering lovers, two and two.
And nuns and novices in saintly crowd.
Here Louis Bien-aim6 emblazoned loud.
And here have high-famed conscripts carried throngh
Scarred standards to their doom at Waterloo,
And all have hoped and vanished into shroud.

And now on Time's top wave come laboring these.
With new beliefs, new hopes, new Love, new Trust:
Still tramp the long battalions through the dust,
And still from yon half-circle of old trees —
High whispering chancel that the night wind calms-
Still Christ on Calvary holds out His arms.'*

^^7E were marching through the golden haze of a
W late afternoon in early summer. Of all the trav-
ellers before us on this Highway, Louis Bien-aime ap-
pealed to me with greater force than those others
named above. Perhaps because his state was in every
way the opposite of our own.

I had always understood from historical writers
that he went to war in a C-spring travelling-coach of
enormous size, drawn by eight horses trained to a
rhythmic step ; that he was accompanied by beaucoup

162

THE HIGHWAY

beautiful ladies, in coaches of less niagnificence, with
their pet monkeys, cockatoos and spaniels inside, and
footmen, scarlet lacqueys and chamber-women on the
box outside; that he always took with him portable
theaters and opera->houses, with hosts of actors and
actresses, whereby to while away the notorious tedium
between victories; and that, finally, he won his war
in a reasonable time, with no trouble and much glory
to himself, and having done so, that he turned about,
with the whole procession at his heels, and returned
home as quickly as possible.

Certainly Louis's methods, his whole conception of
campaigning were diflFerent to mine or to any of my
immediate friends. He had known nothing, for in-
stance, of an iron-ration bag containing a heavy
bully-beef tin that dangles from your belt and gives
you a blow on the thigh with every step. Also if he
had forgotten a gray flannel shirt sent to the wash at
the last camp, and suddenly remembered it en route,
he could order a batman with a wave of his hand to
ride back and fetch it.

How differently had the fates treated him.

Yet, though I was envious, I was not jealous of him
at six o'clock that summer evening. I should have
been sorry, for instance, if Mack had begun to demon-
strate to me that such a 9onception as Louis could
never really have existed. Mack had a scientific mind.
He dealt with life a trifle coldly. Ah me! This
Reality of which certain steely persons are so sure!

163

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

It was never more elusive than on the march, when
earth passed irrationally under my feet and time was
only what was past.

No, if we are but what we are, we will not grudge
Louis that God of Active Service, his being what
he so superlatively was. On the contrary, such is our
nature, that if Louis Bien-aime had never existed, U
faudra Venventer on the march.

At that moment Little Harry, who marched next
me, broke my train of thought by bumping into me.
He said it was the fault of the man on the other side
of him who bumped into him. Conversation began.
Harry said "It seems a bit funny marching along like
this and not knowing where I'm going. I'm not used
to it." "You ought to be getting used to it by now,"
said some one behind who had overheard ; but Harry
was not ruffled.

"Do you believe in a Hereafter?" he continued.

"I don't know," I replied ; "I'm wondering if I be-
lieve in a Now-at-present. If you could believe in
this you could easily believe in an3rthing. Why the
hell is Private Lee always out of step?"

"He's not out of step," said Spariryr from the four
in front.

"Then why does he always go up when every one
else goes down, and down when every one else goes
up?"

"All Jews do," said Sparky.

The column had been cheerful. Some one teng

x64

THE HIGHWAY

half a song, but it was not taken up. We were re-
lapsing into the sulkiness that comes in the beginning
of a march, after the first swing is over and before
you have reached your second wind. At a curve
in the road we could see the baggage waggons of an-
other column ahead of tls, trailing along through the
dust. One of the drivers turned and shouted some-
thing to the waggon behind him. Was it a halt? or
only an A.S.C. joke? No, no halt yet. All our offi-
cers were on horseback. They looked cool and com-
fortable. They held their riding-whips at arms' length
with the butt on their hips. "How silly of theml" I
thought. "The Colonel started it and now they all do
it." But the Colonel was not on horseback after all.
His batman was leading his horse, and he was march-
ing gaily ahead, swinging his cane and showing off his
beer-brown gaiters. It was a pleasure to see him
stepping it with ourselves. The sight roused me a
moment. Reggie, our agricultural expert, was in the
four in front. He never spoke much on the march,
but always to the point. I asked him what was the
French crop we could see above the low hedge on our
right. Reggie looked at it sideways.

"Some blinkin' grass." Silence. . . .

It was no use, we were becoming submerged,
chained to the heels of the man in front. I sank like-

"Keep that blank file clear," said Big Harry from
behind. It was all very well for him, he carried

i6S

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

raisins to eat on occasions like these. "Qose in to
the right/' he shouted again, and a large gray staff
car came up on our left and passed us with a hum-
ming sound. An impression was left of a red and
gold cap, an eyeglass, and a benevolent stare. Then a
veil of dust rose from the road. . . .

"Oh for a deep and dewey spring
With runlets cool to bathe and drink.
And a great meadow blossoming."

"Halt and fall out on the right of the road," we
heard far ahead; but still marched on. The divine
words were repeated nearer at hand "Halt and fall
out on the right of the road." We stopped suddenly
and there was a rush for the bank.

This was but the first halt. We were to march all
night and we had been packing all the day. There
was need to husband our strength. I stood wearily
in the road a moment. It was less fatiguing than
to fight for a seat on the bank. But the cheerful
voice of Lynwood called out: "Here's a seat, Ser-
geant."

Lynwood was an accomplished nursing orderly,
and his conversation was one of his accomplishments.
He was in a sweet, agreeable htunor, and began his
healing arts upon me almost before I had sunk on to
a patch of scraggy grass beside him. They consisted
chiefly in an invincible friendliness. Now he talked
quietly and humorously and drew me with him away

i66

THE HIGHWAY

to his home in the north of England. He had evi-
dently been there in thought for some time past, for
he spoke with concentration. The spell of the march
was upon him, too, but he seemed to know how to
use it for his own purposes.

As we sat on the bank the weight of ourselves and
our packs caused us to slip downwards uncomfort-
ably, so that we had frequently to jerk ourselves a
little higher, and again a little higher, in order not to
slip down into the ditch below us.

"... Yes, we used to form a party of a Satur-
day afternoon and go for expeditions . . . geo-
logical expeditions. We'd go perhaps to Chapel Frith,
perhaps a forty-minute ride out of Manchester. An
hour by a slow train. It's fine country out there. Fine
hills and all. And we'd always have a right proper
tea ordered beforehand wherever it might be we were
going to finish up — ^see. Chapel Frith's got two sta-
tions — ^the Midland and the London Northwest. Well,
say we went to the Midland station; no — ^well, say
we went to the London Northwest. Eh, that's a fine
expedition. Well, we'd go to Chapel-Frith-London-
North- West, London Road station out of Manchester,
and perhaps take us lunch, to eat in the train. Then
we'd walk from there over to Buxton. Or, say
across into Edale, have tea there and take the train
back. . . .

"My friend always arranged it all. He was a cham-
pion geologist. He'd point us out the formation as

167

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

we went. Or if we came to an escarpment, he'd tell
us how it come to be there. You know. He used
to make it proper interesting. Of course — mind — ^it
were a privilege for me to be with him. ... He
was a man of education. And we had ladies with us
and all. And we always ended up with a right proper
tea, Sergeant-«-tea, bread-and-butter, eggs, jam • • •
sweetcake. ..."

"Fall in,*' said a voice, and the command was re-
peated down the road. A whistle blew.

Without comment Lynwood and I separated, and
never continued that particular conversation.

When we had started again I continued to think
of L3mwood and his friends for a space of several
hundred yards.

Presently we turned a comer and entered a large
village, where an audience waited for us. Here was
a change of mood.

We raised our heads and swung our arms ; and the
section behind began a song with a meaning.

Now we were going to be admired. The game we
were preparing to play was an old game, but worth
playing. On active service who shall not excuse us
for playing it.

The dust had subsided and the houses were freshly
lit by the setting sun. Men and women stood at their
doors; hands were waved and children ran shouting
alongside of us.

All at once there was a stir at the head of the

i68

THE HIGHWAY

section, a cat-call, and cries of "Ahl" An officer
riding in front looked behind him, and we followed
his gaze. A painted young woman stood alone on a
doorstep at the other side of the road. Her skirt
was short, her hands were on her hips, and she held
herself proudly and indolently. But her head was
full of youth and well set on her shoulders. She was
good to look upon. She seemed for a moment to be
confronting our animal eyes; and as she stood there,
returned our stare with superb defiance.

Then deliberately she made a movement with her
ankle.

It was a challenge, and we yelled in answer. But
there sprang into her face on the moment such a look
of passion and contempt that the licentious gesture
itself seemed transformed into an act of spuming.

Here was not admiration. If it was anything, it
was humiliation.

The littie drama was over in a moment, but it was
so startiing a revelation: so obviously the act of an
enemy, and of one victorious for a moment, that it
appeared to me the starting-point of something to fol-
low.

The old working women, who had seen the incident,
grinned. Others, as we passed them, stood with fold-
ed arms and appeared to watch us with x:omplacence.
They seemed to rejoice in our toil.

The men, their husbands, home from the fields or
the workshop, who stood smoking,. hands in pockets,

169

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

or who were digging quietly in their gardens ;-*-they
were our friends. But the women, all women, were
our enemies. They seemed to say to us, as they
wagged their heads and shrugged their shoulders : —

"Your turn has come now, and about time, too.
. . . Young men have had the world their own way
for long enough. Now you have some real hard work
for the first time in your lives, like as not, and a fine
fuss you make of it, with no women to look after you
when the day is over. . . .

"Yes, you want us to admire you with your dnuns
and your buttons and your proud ways. You think
that is real grinding work. But don't your meals come
regular, meat twice a day, and no one to fend for but
yourselves. . • ."

The column was now in a rhythmic swing. We had
left the village behind. But my pack seemed to weigh
upon me with every step, and I experienced a short
period of extreme fatigue. My mind danced in a
lunatic maze and I thought of hideous things, but
seemed always' to return to the vision of a working
woman's large wrinkled face, with eyes so far apart
I couldn't see them.

"Yes," a voice continued in my ear, "you've had
it your own way so far and a pretty mess you've made
of it. . . .

"And now you've got to clear up the mess, you may
learn what work really means. Your turn to sweat.
You've to work for us now. You've to protect us and

170

THE HIGHWAY

our children. . . . It's our turn to be looked after
now. . . .''

"Infernal hag!" I cried. "Is this the gratitude we
get for our services? To have our most sacred in-
stincts scorned; our poor passions exposed and flung
at us in the street as that young whore did just now.
Are our drun» and polished buttons anything com-
pared to your gigantic vanity? . . . Women, mon-
sters of materialism you make your motherhood the
ultimate excuse for standing armies, for wars and for
every abomination on earth; you give your sons and
husbands to feed them, and call it your sacri-
fice. . . ."

The golden haze had now gone gray in the east and
deepened to red in the west, but the air was heavy.
The man in front of me was out of step. He swore
he was right by the marker at the head of the column
and that every one else was wrong. I touched his heel
with the toe of my boot, but still he would not change.
I felt myself sink again. The blind mouth hissed in
my ear —

"That young woman on the step was my daughter ;
but who made her a whore? Fool. . . .In this war
you are our enemies"

"Ludicrous argument," I replied, "and used against
us once too often. Are young women so pure that they
deserve both a new freedom and an old chivalry! It
is much to your advantage nowadays that the men
are always to blame. We give you freedom and you

171

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

use it to tempt us; we protect you in child-bearing
and you forget us for the children ; we march to de-
fend your honor and you are false to us at home, and
now in our very labor you scorn us. . . .

"I will tell you why, too. You are jealous of us!

"The tables are turned. Granted. You see the
world of men, the world of young men caught, in a
toil that will subdue them. They will be aged, as
some of you are aged, before they are thirty. But
you are jealous because even now we are your mas-
ters. We are slaves in body, but unchained in mind.
Our labors are not for children to protect us, but for
children with wings, for the liberties of the world.
We elude you still while you are still submerged in
the gross world you are so concerned to perpetuate."

I expected a parting shot in reply, but, raising my
head, I became conscious of a change. The man in
front of me was in step again. A cool breeze had
arisen. Some one in front was singing a pleasant
song to himself.

When the voice replied again it seemed no longer
the voice of a temptress, but came remote on the
breeze with a kind of wail —

"Then why do you cry for us when you are dying
as you did when you were newly-born?"

It was not the kind of last word I had expected.
I turned away from the thought, shifted my pack
into an easier position, and marched jauntily like a
schoolboy. "After all, why should I care. We do

172

THE HIGHWAY

very well without them. We don't want them," I
whispered to myself rather shamefacedly.

I tried to turn my back on them all. "Men for me,"
I thought.

With an indescribable thrill I remembered a piece
of chocolate in my pocket. I felt for it and ate it
with relish. . . . Before us now the way was dark.
The road, so populous in daytime, became silent ex-
cept ^or our feet. We were entering the night.

For a while we marched with the flare lights of the
front on our left rising and falling in a wide arc as
far as the eye could reach. In the gloom a child,
peeping from a cottage window, could have seen or-
derly lines of dark figures passing with humps on
their shoulders, and each with a white bag bobbing
at his back.

A warm glow of light lay on the road ahead. Each
section of four coming abreast of it looked eagerly to
its source on the right of the road ; and from behind
we could see the light on mens' faces. We looked in
our turn. It was a little shrine lit by two candles.
From behind a barred doorway an altar was plainly
visible for a moment, with an image of a madonna on
it and a vase of flowers. For the fraction of a second
it was present to us, a friendly pious light; then it
was gone to mingle with all the other past things be-
hind our backs.

Presently we came to a darkened house. On its
black window-panes the reflected lights of the sky

173

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

danced dismally. By now all good people were in bed.
Then we came to another house. A footpath began
beside us and a blind lamp-post and other urban signs
appeared. Dogs barked defiantly at us from back-
yards.

By midnight we found ourselves in the center of a
sleeping town which dimly impressed us as being of
enormous size. A large gothic church loomed over
us, towering out of sight.

"What place was this?" we asked, but no one knew.

Some one began to whistle the Marseillaise. Others
took it up, and the thin inflammatory sound swayed
above our tramping feet.

An attic window was thrown open and a night-
capped head appeared. Then another, and another.
They waved to us and cheered sleepily.

"Les Anglais qui chantent La Marseillaise."

It was the tune that had drawn them from their
beds.

We waved back and shouted to them in reply. In
the market square a halt was called, but we remained
standing in our fours.

A large street lamp remained alight in the center
of the xnarket square, and beneath it we could see
other battalions filing past, each man with shadows
for eyes. We continued to whistle the Marseillaise,
handing it on to them like a torch of sound. Their
feet laid hold of it and then their mouths. Company
after company passed. The night-capped heads con-

174

THE HIGHWAY

tinued to cheer, and popped in and out of windows
along the sides of the square. We drew oursdves up
and felt a moment of pride. »

"Who are they?" some one asked from the four m
front, referring to the troops passing.

"It's the brigade," a voice replied. "We follow on,
I expect."

When the last file had passed by there came a rumb-
ling sound and two cooks' carts passed under the
light. Steam arose from them and a glow of coals
shone behind. A man with a large fork followed.

"Ah," said a voice in our section, "them's the things,
them oven-carts; they follow behind and cook a bit
of breakfast all the way."

"And why 'aven't we got 'em — ^that's wot I wants
to know?"

"They say Lord Somebody gave them to the Jocks
before leaving England."

"Get in your fours there. Forward. Mind that
blank file."

We followed in the direction taken by the Jocks,
fulfilling the Order of March, which says that each
ambulance shall follow in the rear of its brigade.

Almost immediately a great weight of sleep fell
upon us. I stumbled over the cobbles and slipped
against the man next me, who replied with a sleepy
oath.

Looking up, we saw the stems of trees on either
hand, and pendant branches overhead. We were

175

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

tnarchiiig tfarougfa a tunnel of stars and leaves. We
had left the unknown town behind.

At the end of the tunnel a halt was called ; and for
an hour we slept. A ditch received me into its damp
softness. Near by an ofiker's servant lay on the
ground, with his arm in the reins of a horse, who
came nearer me, snuffing in the grass. The snores
of the man and the munching of the horse mingled in
my dreams. . . .

Very soon, in about five minutes it seemed, the
sweetness of sleep in a ditch was changed to the agony
of sleep on my l^;s. What had happened? We must
have fallen in and resumed our march.

I remembered Mr. Belloc had written words some-
where to the effect that poets and soldiers had always
some unpleasantness in their lives. What the poet's
unpleasantness was I had forgotten, but the soldier's
was having to get up and continue his march. How
true that was. But does it help matters much? Are
we enduring all this in order that the Michelets and
the Bellocs shall write about us? Did the charge of
the Light Brigade occur merely in order that Tenny-
son might write his ballad and provide food for in-
finite cheap parodies?

No! No I Away, foul temptations. I still believe
that a sweet rationality of existence reigns some-
where.

It is only Romance that has gone: that flower of
youth which now resembles the dried cauliflower in

176

THE HIGHWAY

my vegetable ration tin. A dried cauliflower which
will, be dropped presently into the soup of life, where
it will swell and swell and grow ugly like Sentimen-
tality. . . . Oh, these damned cobble stones! . . .
Are you going mad? No, you are only enduring
naked Time.

I remembered how once on this same march, years
ago, I had walked jauntily munching a piece of choco-
late and feeling glad of being free from women.

Now it seemed there were no women left in the
universe. They had all been withdrawn somewhere;
and I was sorry for it.

In the darkness we were a world of men, brave
men, but all intent on some incredible absurdity; all
blind and dumb, marching together like so many cats
relying on our whiskers; and all isolated from each
other by Fate. By some action in the past we had
cut ourselves off from all comfort, happiness and well-
being. Nothing remained but the eternal labor, in
company with others, of getting from one unknown
place to another. The reason, if reason there was,
lay in the moving itself. Somehow it was all really
admirable. Every one agreed it was so; therefore it
must be so. To move from one place to another with
as much on your back as possible was the chief end
of Man. . . .

'Tfou must believe in it. You must believe. • • .'*

But my mind had slipped down into my boots.

A gray dawn came and relieved us with a kind of

177

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

mercy, lightening the load of sleep from our eyes.

The country had changed. To our weariness it ap-
peared beautiful as a land of temptations. The trees
were taller than we had known them before and grew
together in large mysterious groups, or stood in a
double ring round a cool green meadow. Cows stood
knee-deep in grass imder the cherry trees, or, switch-
ing their tails, lowed gently together, impatient for
miUdng-time. Every gate gave upon a place where
to sleep would be paradise. Through every gap in
the hedge each meadow appeared greener, its grass
softer and more inviting, than the one before.

At first the farm-houses were smokeless, but after
the hour of four, farmers and laborers stood at their
gates blinking at us. "Pity us, pity us, pity us," our
feet seemed to say on the hard roads. ^Oh, feet of
civilians, pity the feet of the soldiers. We have seen
you to bed and we see you arise. You have removed
your boots by your stoves, you have lain between
blankets, while we have been hammering each behind
the other eternally onwards.''

We halted for ten minutes once every hour. The
men lay down at once in the road where they stood
and slept heavily.

The June morning ripened to full five o'clock glory.
The sun crept down from the tops of the pollarded
elms, slid down the long brown roofs of the farms and
caught the buttercups in the grass. The full beauty
of a rich land was revealed to us, and its beauty was

178

THE HIGHWAY

intensified with longing. We crossed a wide canal
bordered by tall poplars. It ran, a cool silver streak
into the dawn as far as eye could reach. What bliss
to shake off equipment, clothing, body itself, to leap
and possess it in spirit, to swim and to sleep. . . .

Once a halt occurred in a village. We lay down at
once where we were, and slept. The milkman, with
his cart and team of dogs, saw soldiers asleep in the
street. He said "Bon jour," but received no reply.

The farm wagons began to roll past us on their way
to market filled with produce. Beside them walked
boys and women. The work of another day had be-
gun; but stumbling forward, we knew we had no
part any more in the world or its work.

Looking behind me, I saw that Big Harry was car-
rying some one else's pack besides his own. He had
no raisins left now, but he was as imperturbable as
ever. "He deserves a dozen V.C.s," I thought. "I
couldn't carry another man's pack for him, to save
my life."

"We must have done more than twenty miles,"
said some one.

"It's all the fault of these killy-bloody-metres," said
Sparky in front.

"Armies have marched thirty miles before now and
gone into action at the end of it," I thought.

The battalions in front had now gone oflF by dif-
ferent routes to their billets. In front of us the road
stretched unpeopled. Surely our toil was nearing an

179

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

end But Fate had arranged that our billets were
much further oflF than those of any other unit There
was no direct road to them, but a long winding one,
that ended up within sight of where we had bc^en an
hour before. The exasperation of this was intense,
and gradually, as more men fell behind, the step gave
out, and after a few eflForts on the part of Big Harry,
no one made an attempt to restore it. We knew it
was useless. Big Harry was probably the only N.C.O.
left in the unit with any breath in him. Sergeant
Henley the regular, who had often talked to us of
South Africa and called this war a picnic by compari-
son, now shuffled along gray and speechless.

But then we learned by its absence what the step
really meant to us. Without the rhythm of the whole
as a narcotic in which all share, each individual be-
comes acutely conscious of his particular effort He
has nothing to help him, and can never attain f orget-
fulness again. Without eyes, without ears, we la-
bored forward, each one alone in the crowd, each one
bearing his own infirmities with what fortitude he
could.

"Is it thus to be very old? . . •

"What if we had to do it all over again . . .,
now?. . .

"When we do halt — ^will they keep us marking time
while we right turn and cover off?*'

Half an hour later Paradise had come.
i8p

THE HIGHWAY

In a certain cherry orchard, a certain old hay wagon
lacking a wheel had slumbered in the long grass for
several summers. A very old lean pig was wont to
come and rub against it at an early hour in the morn-
ing. But the pair were disturbed at six o'clock on
that particular morning by a mob of gray-brown men
who stumbled through the grass and fell on the ground
in little groups. They leaned back against their packs,
or propped themselves against the stems of the cherry
trees. The grass was long and untrampled, except for
the little lanes that led to where each man had fallen.
The sun was hot, but a dappled shade prevailed. Those
who had dropped in the sun gradually shifted until
the trees shaded them. Then they slipped their arms
from their packs, took off their tunics, rolled over at
full length and slept.

The ancient pig made off through a gap in the
hedge.

All day men slept. The cherry tree shadows, slip-
ping imperceptibly round their stems, alone marked
the hours.

At noon I rose. The soft full dream of summer was
too luxurious for unconsciousness. The peacefulness
of my fellows, the abundant quiet life in field and tree,
the humming of bees, the voice of the cuckoo, made
me restless, and in spite of the fatigues of the night
I had a hundred desires. I wanted to find even softer
grass. I wanted to read Keats. I wanted to think
quietly of home. I wanted cooler shade. I wanted

i8i

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

to brown myself in the sun. The vision through a
gate of yet another orchard untrod by man attracted
me. I wandered as though sleep-walking in broad
day, and found myself eventually at the farm-house.

Here a woman was hanging up clothes on a line.
First two pink garments, then a chemise de nuit, then
an apron, then a small pair of pantaloons. . . . The
woman nodded in a friendly way.

A brick-lined pool of clear water stood near by.
"Here one could shave !" I watched a hen who stood
on the edge of the pool and drank in a ludicrous man-
ner.

On my way back I found another wanderen Little
Norton sat on a tree tnmk, reading a letter.

"Have the letters come?"

He nodded.

"Wait here," I said; "111 come back.''

Presently we were reading our letters side by side.
Mine was a cheerful one from home. But when I
looked at m^' companion his face had the stiff look
which I knew meant he was troubled.

Norton was a little man who was almost univer-
sally despised as being stupid. But he was not stupid ;
he was only very slow. The time element in his
thinking was different to other persons'. His eyes
were always wide open and had a baffled look, as if
the world was altogether too complex a place for him.

I was sitting below him on the grass, with my letter
in my hand. I was looking up at him,

182

THE HIGHWAY

"Is your letter from your wife ?'' he asked.

"Yes/* He paused and then said —

"You can't never understand a woman. I can't.
Even your wife. ... A woman or a horse . . .
they may be faithful for years . . . and then * . .
they'll turn and bite you."

"I wouldn't say a woman was as bad in that way
as a horse."

"No," he continued sadly. "And the trouble is you
can't understand them, but they can understand you."

I replied rather hotly that I believed I was quite as
intelligent as my wife. But I was sorry in a moment
I had no consolation to offer him. He sighed heavily
and said —

"Of course it's no use complaining."

The look in his brown eyes was more baflSed than
ever.

We returned each to his lair in the orchard.
"These people think and suffer, but are so inarticulate
that no one knows to what conclusions they arrive,"
I thought. "He once told me he had been married
very happily for three years and had a child. Prob-
ably his wife is ill and will not tell him that she is so ;
and he has heard about her from a neighbor. It often
happens like that. They cannot express themselves in
letters, so they say nothing about what troubles them
most, until perhaps the time comes when a doctor
writes instead. . . . Or, again, they are at the mercy

183

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

of any other person who writes and drops a phrase
they cannot forget

"Husband and wife • • • how is it the relation-
ship survives such blankness at all? • . .He may
have marched all last night with anxiety added to his
load of fatigue."

Then I remembered the evil thoughts that had as-
sailed me the evening before, on the march. Suddenly
the vision I then had seen, of men and women bound
together in a hateful jealous conspiracy from which
war alone could save them, was confronted with a
new vision of simple men and women in a companion-
ship of spirit capable of resisting life-long perplexi-
ties and unknown sufferings, a vision of supreme pa-
tience, of endurance, and a forlorn citadel in the heart
against mysterious forces.

This vision mingled fantastically with the dancing
glory of the June day, with the butterflies and the
desire of the cuckoo's song, and with the spectacle of
the sleeping men rendered insensible through their
utter fatigue. But I bowed in spirit to Norton. Were
we not companions in perplexity?

184

CHAPTER X

AN EASLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

"L'arm^e est aveugle et muette. . . . Cest une grande
chose que Ton meut, et qui tue ; mais aussi c'est une chose
qui souffre."— Dc Vigny.

THE brigade was in the area of the heavy guns,
waiting to go into action. It was now early morn-
ing, and we had been waiting for a day and a night
in very pleasant July weather, with no duty but that of
not getting lost If we cared to do so we could learn
from the guimers, and also from the procedure of the
guns themselves, that the assault had been a success.
But we were not over inquisitive. Hearing plenty of
lies, we cared to ask no questions, and if the authori-
ties were not in a hurry, we were very happy simning
ourselves and receiving regular meals. During this
anticlimax a friend of mine had read half a small
volume picked up at Corby on the French Revolution.
We sat together on an escarpment looking down the
valley, and could see the crews of some big French
guns. They were active men, who wore overalls like
mechanics, and had the movements of mechanics
rather than of Soldiers.

i8S

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"Have you ever thought," he said, "that leading
such a life as this we are in a peculiar position for
criticising books ? In this way, that even platitudes and
truisms can be interesting if they can be referred to
immediate experience. Take my case now. I read of
Liberte, Egalite, Fratemite. I raise my eyes from
these pages and see those little men in blue still reply*
ing to Brunswick's Manifesto. It's bloody interest-
ing.*'

"I felt all that at Loos," I replied. "That was my
age of Romance. But all this is Industrialism."

"And now," he continued, still lost in his book,
"we are on the right side. On the side of Rousseau
and Sieyes."

"You think we are really fighting for those — ^those
ideas?"

"Yes. I am, anyway."

We were silent a moment, and then I said—

"Why have we no ideas of our own to fight for?"

He turned and seemed to consider my question.

"I suppose those are universal ideas."

"Which we arrive at a century late."

"Perhaps we are the grand experimenters of ideas.
The ballast of the ship."

"But surely we are more than that now. Granted
that we have always stood for liberty; but now we
are more than standing, we are moving. We are
on the side of revolution whether we will or no, on
the side of the incalculable. And when nations move

i86

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

they follow ideas and those who can supply them.
Are we still to be led by French ideas, by Geneva
ideas, by Russian ideas? All true ideas are universal,
but have we no great conception that is our own?
Have we no British contribution?"

"I think we have one, but we are not conscious of
it/'

"Perhaps it is time we became conscious. Perhaps
the world is waiting."

After which I left him to his dreams.

I had seen a Scotch sergeant of a pioneer battalion
sitting with some of his men below us in the valley.
He was a friend who had once been a patient under
our care. He was a fierce-living fellow, with a ques-
tioning blue eye and a large pensive nose. He knew
his native songs and poems by heart, and would con-
tradict himself once every five minutes in any discus-
sion. He knew also how to fight all day and dig
trenches all night. Qambering downwards, I left my
young friend with his book, sitting with the sun in
his eyes, and so much spread before him for his con-
templation. I left him with a feeling of regret as
though he had been my younger self.

I sat down on a patch of grass beside Sergeant X.

"WuU," said he.

''WeU," said L

**How are your lads?"

"We foUow the brigade."

**YouTl have your work cut out."

i8jr

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"What's it going to be like ... like Loos?"

"Christ knows, I don't"

After this greeting we had some discussion on the
killing of prisoners. Sergeant X. snorted and de-
clared if he had his way he'd kill every beggar of
them. Then almost inmiediatdy he proclaimed that
they were only obeying orders, and he felt as sorry
for them as for his own lads.

"There's a little chap in my platoon just done him-
self in," he added.

"Did you know him personally?"

"Yes, he was a good hard-working lad, who might
have got his stripe after this do. We never saw any-
thing wrong with him till a few weeks ago when he
came back off leave. He got funny then, and said
he couldn't go into action any more ; said he saw dead
bodies lying about everywhere."

"What did you say to him?"

"We were sorry for him. Told him not to poke
and puzzle ; but we didn't know how bad he was. Ye
know there are lots of fellows get queer at times and
pull through."

'Then one day he went to an officer and told him
he couldn't go on WUing his fellow-men."

"What did the officer say?" I asked.

"The officer. Christ! The officer played hell with
him for coming up to him without an N.C.O. He
shot himself that evening in the neck and chest. He's
done for himself. But they interviewed him before

i88

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

he went down the line, and what do you think they
gave out about him?"

•What?"

''That when he'd been on this last leave he'd found
out his parents were German/'

*'Do you believe it?"

"German I No! He was no more German than
I ami Anyway that's what they gave out about him."

We sat silent for a while, and then he turned his
eye on me.

''Just think ... if my dad told me he was a
German. ..."

"What would you do?"

"I'd shoot him."

"But you'd be a German too," I said.

"By God, I wouldn't!" he said fiercely.

We sat silent for a while, each with our own
thoughts. There was an engineers' water-tap near-by
under which a man with his tunic off, and his grey
shirt-sleeves rolled up, was sluicing himself with en-
joyment. He put his red neck under the tap and the
water ran over his neck and through his hair and
made puddles on the grotmd at his feet.

Then Sergeant X. said, "What are those chaps look-
ing at up there?" He pointed with his finger and I
saw a little group of our men standing round some
object of interest. We rose from our seat, and
strolled towards the group. I could not help think-
ing, as we went, of the strange sequence of Fate that

189

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

had presented this story to me at this time, a gift to
carry on to the battlefield.

"They're gaping at a couple of Fritzes," said Ser-
geant X. as we drew nearer the group, and almost im-
mediately he left me with a short 'word of farewell.
But something in the position of the onlookers at-
tracted me. I approadied and found two German
prisoners. They were the first Somme prisoners I
had seen.

One lay on his back on a stretcher. He was a
young man with a thin, nervous face, high forehead
and dark, narrow eyes. His arm lay off the stretcher,
and he rested the back of his hand on the earth. He
seemed to regard no-one and nothing, betrayed no
pain, and apparently listened without interest to the
words of his companion. The second prisoner was
the more remarkable of the two. He crouched, half
kneeling, half sitting, beside the stretcher, talking vol-
ubly in a position turned towards the wounded one.
His conversation stopped at intervals, and he would
look upwards, turning his eyes slowly round the circle
of British faces. Sometimes he drew with his fingers
in the earth in front of him. There was something
in his eyes not quite human. It was probably due to
the fact of having endured a long period of shell-fire.
He frequently smiled and looked happy. Both he and
his companion were in color grey as their uniforms,
but their eyes shone with life.

But what was strange was that we were not the

190

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

ordinary gaping inquisitive crowd. They were in-
different to us, yet they had moved us. We kept
silence while that crouching figure spoke, in his
strange tongue, as though to himself.

It frequently happens on active service that long
periods of monotonous existence, every detail of which
is forgotten, are broken by some such short memorable
spell. We listened in a kind of awe. It was as if you
could detect that some drama hidden from common
sight had risen suddenly to a crisis, for the moment
Arresting all observers and expressing nakedly those
great forces which in other channels can send an
artist mad, or lift a theater to its feet.

Men kept joining and leaving the group. There
seemed to be no sentry over the two prisoners. The
wretched, ragged, yet talkative being continued to con-
verse and to smile to himself. I think he held us be-
cause the result of his behavior was to express a ter-
rible shy compassion for his wounded companion.
He seemed to behave as an affectionate, intelligent dog
might behave finding himself for the first time in
human shape beside a beloved mast^. Thus he
seemed to make use of human speech, human smiles.

''All his buttons are gone all right," said some one.

'lie looks like Jesus Christ," said another.

The youth on the stretcher groaned and asked for
something in German. The crouching one looked up
and said, "De Teau." A water-bottle was brought.
He watched through our legs till it came. In return

191

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

he took off his tap and with a kind of abject dignity
handed it to one of us. It was passed round, in-
spected, and finally replaced on his head with a pat-
ronizing pat.

He went on talking for some time to his friend,
who continued to look away from him into vacancy.

It was perhaps an hour later that I saw them again.
The brigade had moved at last Our brief period of
peace had come to an end, and a party of us with
stretchers were preparing to go forward into the tm-
known land: the land from which those two incom-
prehensible creatures had come.

We passed them for a moment. The prisoner who
had lain silent had been placed in an ambulance car
about to start. Then I caught a glimpse of the other
as he ran forward and took a seat beside the driver.
He looked mad and happy. The car jolted off. They
were gone.

We left even the thought of them behind. The
threads of our lives had crossed, unaccountably linked,
and diverged again. But we were soon to make
hideous discoveries of the land they had come from.
We were walking in file carrjring stretchers, and
haversacks filled with dressings. The dressing-station
where we had camped that night was the last place
where lint, wool or bandages could be supplied. We
followed an old railway line up a shallow valley, and
presently left behind us the last trees and bushes wear-
ing leaves. At the same time shell holes increased in

198

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

number. I had known this valley and railway line a
few week3 before, but then we were down in the
trenches peeping out at risk, making maps in a laby-
rinth. Now we walked forward seeing all things. First
we came to what had been our front line trenches,
the frontier of France for eighteen months and more.
A hundred yards ahead was what had b^en the fron-
tier of Germany, but was so no longer. We halted
here for a while. The morning had ripened into a
heavy leaden forenoon. The atmosphere seemed to
suggest that the gigantic storm, that had but lately
finished its wreckage here, had left a brooding swell.
As we stood the guns were silent. There was silence
and the mute witness of the dead. The earth was
hideous, eyeless, burnt blind. In our forsaken
trenches the rats reigned supreme.

Presently we continued our way, still following the
railway line across that hundred yards that had once
been No Man's Land, dividing the opposites of Europe,
We had already passed brown corpses, but here al-
most immediately the grey corpses began to appear.
How can I describe this stretch of earth, at that mo-
ment almost untouched by the wheels and hoofs of
our advance? For so many months it had been known
to men only by night. By day the corpses on their
backs, hummed over by bullets, had faced the sky
alone. But every sundown the place had stolen into
ghoulish life. The cramped snipers, the crawling pa-
trols, the listeners shivering at their posts had all been

193

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

here, had pressed through this grass, had mistaken the
rustling of these bushes for the breathing of an en-
emy. I could mark no insect, no bird anywhere. The
rank brown tangled grass, the thistles, the hideous
growths of barbed wire holding human remains like
flies in spiders' webs, were all part of an underworld
unfamiliar to a creature still blessed with the sweet
union of soul and body. I longed for a cleansing wind
to blow away a sense of gross mysticism, of adultery
between the Seen and the Unseen. The place seemed
ghost-ridden in broad day. We found German dead
far out in No Man's Land. They had doubtless crawled
further and further away from the terrible and in-
creasing surf of shells that pervaded their own lines
for days before the attack. But reaching the German
firing-trench, there was no lack either of our own
dead or of the tales dead men can tell. Here is a
soldier who looks as if he had just sat down a mo-
ment to die. Here is one looking at his watch. Here
is a strange record of a disappointment: a British and
a German soldier, both already wounded, have evi-
dently made terrible efforts to get at each other. With
hatred in the face of each, they had just reached to
within arm's length, not after all to fight, but both to
be subdued in death.

In the old front line of the enemy, or what remained
of it, we halted and prepared a temporary dressing-
station. Those dug-outs that were not destroyed were
cleaned. The place was a labyrinth, gruesome enough

194

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

in its debris and flavor as of the tombs. At corners
and junctions of trenches we were confronted with lit-
tle notice-boards in neat German characters. At one
point there remained fixed into the trench wall a
memorial tablet of wood, carved with a gothic trefoil,
and inscribed to some soldier of the Vaterland. At
the point where the railway line crossed the trench
system we set a water tank, and made a cook-house.
We were a little colony of living among troops of the
dead. Right and left, backwards and forwards, round
every comer, lay the grey bodies. They were not con-
spicuous, but they were there. At night on duty with
a covered lamp and a surgical haversack when the
stumbling stretcher-bearers had gone for the moment^
and when thick snores came up from dug-outs where
soldiers slept ; the stars shone down upon us and pin-
points of thought woke and danced in my mind. We
could not see them, but round those shadowy comers
thev could be felt. They had not dwelt here so long
without leaving their print on the air. The place was
theirs still ; only they were dead. Sitting on a petrol
tin, I leaned back and touched the trench wall with
my head. Suddenly there ran a slight shiver through
the air. What fancies were these? — ^the dead had re-
sponded. But to what? The sotmd, whatever it was,
remained. It was also familiar. It was like the hum-
ming of the railway lines above us. A far-away
screech as of an engine sounded and drew nearer. Of
course, it was only the screech of a heavy shell going

I9S

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

over. Besides, the rails had been torn up for yards.
But still, against all reason, a train was appi^aching
down the valley from the direction of the enemy.
Also there was now another sound — of footfalls in
the trenches all around. The ghost train came on and
ran above us — an engine and a series of old third
class coaches, dilapidated and with broken windows.
With muffled brakes the thing came to a standstill be-
hind us in No Man's Land. They were now coming out
from all sides, crowding and lurching down the
trenches, without arms, without faces (I remember
one had a head like a paintbrush), and ran out into
No Man's Land. There were plenty of bullets about at
night: but of course they did not mind. The dead be-
sieged the doors of the train and crowded in. So
much the better, thought I, we shall not have to bury
them. I felt an irresistible curiosity to know who
the engine-driver might be ; and crept forward, there-
fore, by an advance trench to get a nearer view. I
noticed that some one had written Paris in chalk on
the carriage doors. There was a faint hissing ahead,
and presently I caught a horrid glimpse of the engine-
driver himself. The fire-box door was open and il-
liuninated him. He leaned quite professionally on
the side of his engine, and rested his chin on his hand.
What disturbed me was that though grotesque and
sinister, he was yet familiar. I had seen him before —
somewhere. He gravely surveyed the jostling crowd
who so ludicrously strove to open doors without arms

ig6

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

or climb into the carriages without feet. He had little

horns on his head, and his strong arms seemed

adapted to stoking a fire. Suddenly I recognized him.

The shock brought me to my senses again. I had only

dreamed that the engine-driver was the Penseur of

Notre Dame.

♦ ♦♦♦♦♦

Next morning I saw an officer's servant I knew
sitting at the mouth of his dug-out, writing in his
diary. (It was at one time very fashionable to keep
diaries.) I asked him what he was writing.

"The Germans/' he said. "Me and 'im spent a
orful night."

By " 'im" he referred to his officer.

"How?" said I anxiously.

"Well, so far we've always had lice, but lice only.
Now first thing in these 'ere dug-outs . . . first
night ... a flea • • . a blinkin' German flea."

But the aspect of death, so striking at first, was
soon worn from the land by ceaseless traffic and activi-
ties. No Man's Land soon became every-man's land.
Batteries, French and English, grow up on all sides.
Convoys appear, halt in lines, and a loitering mule
snuffs the rank grass. The smoke rises from cook-
house fires. A motor-cyclist falls off in front of you
and wants to know where he is. A colonel of artillery
sends an orderly for some aspirin.

It is always worth while to watch a battery of

197

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

French seventy-fives take up a position. With whips»
shouts, and cris de jote they like, where possible, to
gallop and wheel into line. Then bestowing their
packs and coffee-mills in a suitable place, the gunners
— themselves clothed in conspicuous blue, with here
and there a red sash — ^will seek to disguise their guns
by sprinkling a little grass over them. This done,
they will turn their handles like so many barrel organs
and wake the echoes with a stream of twenty rounds
or so, just to let the Boches know what to expect
later on ; and so to cards without further delay.

Before leaving the old German front line, it is in-
teresting to look back from the German sniping-posts,
and see how fine a view they commanded. There
was our communication trench zigzagging down the
hill opposite, and there was the road on its crest, with
its row of trees and gaps in the hedge, past which we
used to walk and hope that the snipers were asleep.
It seems on the whole as well that they were. There
was the narrow sunken road, from which only a week
ago we watched the destruction of the enemy's barbed
wire by our guns — ^this wire now in front of us.

Meanwhile the railway line has been patched by
the R.E. men, who place bits of wood where rails
are missing and who contrive ingenious wooden points
at likely places where trolleys may have an oppor-
tunity of trying to go in two directions at once. Traffic
soon starts on this line. The wounded go down the val-
ley. Tanks of water and stores of all kinds come up.

198

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

Higher up the line some of our men are working an
advanced dressing-station in an old German communi-
cation trench. As usual it is surrounded by our guns,
and is shelled by the enemy a whole summer day.
Within the A.D.S. the dressers, with rolled up sleeves,
cut their white and cyanide gauze, count their remain-
ing splints, and see to it that their precious solutions
of eusol are not wasted. There is usually a little
crowd of bearers outside, hot and panting, newly ar-
rived with a load, or taking fresh stretchers from
the pile and mustering their strength for a new jour-
ney. Few people realize the aching, over-mastering
fatigue of stretcher-bearing after long, unrelieved
hours.

The wounded, when properly dressed, labelled and
passed by an officer, are carried across to the railway
line to a point at which a little flag waves, and are
thence despatched on the trolleys back to the cars,
and so down —

"To where the dripping surgeons wait,"
and if they get so far they may well get further, so
good luck go with them.

Though there were moments when we looked back
enviously after those we had dispatched in hope, all
life, all curiosity impelled forward. For are we not
helping at the greatest travelling accident that has so
far happened to Civilization? Even we — the rank
and file of the R.A.M.C., abused and abusive — ^have
our moments of secret devotion.

199

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

A squad of eight of us went, wearily enough, at the
close of an eventful day to relieve the last squad help-
ing the regimental stretcher-bearers on one of the
battalion fronts. We were taken by one of our offi-
cers to the trench and fotuid the aid- post from which
we were to work. The battalion M.O. was a thin,
pale man, with deep brown eyes, whose face was lined
and ashy with lack of sleep. He had a gentle abstracted
manner, and a high voice. So great was his fatigue
that every least action and decision required an ob-
vious effort of will almost painful to observe. One
of our squad had learnt from one of the last squad
that he was "a fine man, a Christian, and would talk
religion.'*

The trench, a shallow reserve of the Germans, was
fairly heavily shelled and gave little protection, but
he paid not the slightest heed to the bombardment.
He examined the surgical haversacks we had brought
with satisfaction, and asked himself aloud whether
he had a sufficient store of iodine.

In such times and places human life rests on the
simplest of medical expedients. The advance dress-
ing-station may reflect the latest scientific theory and
provide eusol on the Somme, where perchloride was
used ten months before at Loos. But the aid-post,
as a rule, retains the time-honored iodine bottle.

The M.O.'s vague and expressionless face made
me feel uneasy, but an incident occurred that showed
him in his true colors. A heavy shell dropped in the

200

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

trench. Many were killed and injured, and for an
instant all was panic. The first thing I saw on re-
gaining my feet was an officer lying on his back, with
the M.O. bending over him. Other* bodies lay beyond.
We raised the patient and .found a terrible abdominal
wound. One of our men ran up with a bag of shell
dressings. The M.O. bound him round, using two
or three of the dressings, and repeated that he had
known worse cases survive.

"He is acting adjutant," he said. "He is one of the
few remaining officers. Get him operated on at once —
go with him yourself." What was magnificent was
his determination in the face of despair, for he must
have seen, as I could see, that the patient was nearly
dead already. As we stumbled off with the stretcher
he almost shrieked after me to keep him alive.

But the order was not one I could carry out. Be-
fore we reached the A.D.S. the patient expired. We
lowered the stretcher a moment to rest. I closed his
eyes. He was a young man, fearfully wasted, but
looking noble and restful in death.

• When we returned to the trench again we found
it had been evacuated by all but a machine-gun squad
and ourselves. We were still to use one end of it
as an aid-post. Presently, besides the enemy shells
that had increased in number, some of our own shells
began to drop short just behind us. I sat down for a
moment and asked myself if this was despair! It
had an effect on the nerves, yet it was infinitely dull

201

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

and uninteresting. At the end of long and arduous
days to be playfully done in by our own shells vfzs
all part of the cynical game as we saw it — part of the
soldier's burden, the burden of insignificance.

But such were not the thoughts of the M.O., who
came along the trench in a casual way much as though
he were looking for a collar stud. Suddenly the new
sound behind us caught his ear.

"What's that?*' said he. "Arent those our own
shells falling short?"

"Yes/* said I.

'•What nonsense/* said he. "Well soon stop that;
Where's the nearest telephone?"

He went off, and before very long the shells in our
rear ceased to fall. Some wit suggested he might
have telephoned in the opposite direction as well
while he was about it.

At one point we looked up and in the evening sky
above us we saw a couple of English aeroplanes
swooping down upon a German, who descended in
circles trying to escape. Was there no place in this
material scheme, so clung to by all of us, that was not
free from the desire of death?

We were all anxious for the M.O. to get some sleep
that night. Small bunks or funk-holes had been dug
in the side of the trench, and one of these we en-
larged and filled with dry sandbags and sacking.
Here we hoped he was fairly warm and comfortable.
The high explosive shells thumped upon us all night,

202

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

but there was only one call for stretcher-bearers.
Next day was something of a respite. The battalion
rations seemed excellent in quality. Sandbags con-
taining bacon, onions, bread, tea, butter, milk and
quince jam were regularly forthcoming. The quince
jam was at that time, for a few weeks, very popular.
It came in round tins, in color a pleasing green, and
in shape very diflferent to the usual Tickler's tin of
plum and apple. On opening it, wine-colored depths
of preserved and juicy fruits were revealed. I dozed
in the early morning, enjoying the absence of shells ;
but presently a sizzling and a delicious smell greeted
me. The machine-gun squad proved themselves gen-
tlemen of high standing in the humanities of war.
They had been friends together in private life in the
same city ; had belonged to the same athletic club, and
had doubtless ridden each other's motor-bicycles. The
same kind of consideration they extended to us as if
we had joined their club or were taking tea with them
after a cross-country run. The fireplace in the trench
wall was dug slightly larger and a fire adequate for
boiling four mess-tins was made. The mess-tins, Ger-
man ones, were then hung on two bayonets over the
fire. In the early Somme fighting, though the British
were victorious in arms, a little kultur victory was
achieved by Germany. For several weeks we took
over the German mess-tin and discarded our own. On
account of its light weight, capacity, and design, it
proved itself superior and won our approval — for we

203

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

were all quick to detect anything making for comfort
Thus two German mess tins could boil where one
boiled before,, or, in this case, four Germans instead
of two English.

That day passed in comparative peace, remarkable
for its few casualties, for its showers and a burst of
simshine. Towards night the M.O., after a long ab-
sence, appeared before us on the parapet. He was
wearing a cape, and his pale face looked paler in the
gloom. We felt that day had been a calm before the
real storm. Looking down upon us he ordered us to
sling our haversacks, and, with our stretchers and re-
maining rations, follow him to a new position. He
walked ahead and led in the direction of B. Wood.

that lay upon our left.

♦ ♦♦♦♦♦

The trees of B. Wood had long ago surrendered
their midsummer leaves, and in the dusk held up
their stark branches as though asking mercy of the
smouldering sky. Looking upwards you could see a
lonely leaf flapping. Stars and rags seemed caught
in the boughs. To the commoner wilderness of death
this place was as a step forward into hell: where
forms of fear had their haunts and evil spirits, all but
visible, moved in their own paths. The menace of
outraged Nature breathed in the startling odor of sap
from thousands of bruised tree trunks. Corpses of
trees and men mingled corruption, and their limbs lay
equally broken.

ac4

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

The M.O., wearing his cape, walked ahead. We
had entered the wood from the comer near the cross
roads, and were now wending our way after him.
The place was quiet that evening: only an occasional
shell fell and echoed. Sticks snapped under our feet.
We came at last to a clearing, and descended to a
trench that ran left and right. It was one of the two
trenches, running the length of the wood, which were
held by our battalion. This trench must have been
eight or nine feet deep, and was so narrow that a
stretcher fully open could not pass along it. But we
had not far to go before we turned sharp, descended
a little passage and found ourselves in a good dug-out
roofed with three layers of tree-trunks, very solidly
set. This was our new aid-post.

The enemy knew every comer of the wood: they
had the range of the trench and the position of the
dug-out accurately, but the excellence of their own
workmanship protected us. The only mistake, from
our point of view, was that the door now faced front,
so that a shell by ill luck might have fallen in the
entrance.

Next moming a reserve battalion made an attack
over the heads of our battalion, who thus became a
reserve in their tum. The enemy's barrage fire grew
thick and continuous, and the wood maintained its
sinister tradition. Shells of all kinds flew screaming
into it as to their natural home. The dug-out was soon
filled with wounded, who came crawling along the

20$

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

trenches or who were brought in by the stretcher-
bearers for treatment. To get them in and out of
the dug-out was difficult enough, but the real struggle
was getting loaded stretchers across the mud, roots,
and fallen timber in the wood. Progress was so slow
and painful that wherever possible four bearers went
with a stretcher as far as the cross roads; whence
two would return to the aid-post. For a couple of
hours, however, owing to the intense shelling, our
operations were suspended. Down in the dug-out
the M.O. worked cheerfully, though he looked on the
veiige of collapse from fatigue. Albert, one of our
bearers who was an excellent dresser, quite unper-
turbed under such conditions, remained to help. Al-
bert had plenty of work, but I fancy he chiefly re-
members searching continuously for the iodine bottle,
which in the crowd and the semi-darkness was always
getting lost. Immersed in our work, we came to feel
that time had stopped, and that we were engaged in
a void of blood and mud and noise. The creepers
hanging down over the entrance moved in the draught
from shell after shell. The crash of falling boughs
sounded continually, and faces wild with terror ap-
peared and disappeared at the entrance to the dug-out.
Although the iodine bottle continued to elude him,
the M.O. never swore. On one occasion, after a crash
that sounded immediately over us, he remarked quiet-
ly, "The Savior loves us." Certainly Death with a
monstrous axe seemed to be striding in the wood

206

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

above us. The wounded huddled themselves into
comers as far as possible from the door. I went out,
on one occasion, into the trench and saw that the
troops were on the verge of panic. The strain of en-
during for hours together the peculiar nameless hor-
ror of this place without any allaying occupation was
too much for flesh and blood. Then it was that some-
thing wonderful happened. In a lull of a few seconds
a bird sang three notes. They were notes full and un-
bearably sweet, and had an effect indescribable upon
those who heard them. Oh, Life ! Exquisite and fan-
tastic Spirit I Now we might live or die, but we had
heard the nightingale as surely as that monk of old
who listened once and found himself an old man. We
are old too. With death, despair and dullness we are
utterly familiar. Yet nearer, more familiar, closer to
our souls than death to our bodies art Thou who
singest. What matter three notes or a century of
song?

The storm closed over us again, and the next thing
I remember was the figure of a man mad with terror
who rushed into the dug-out holding his back and
shouting, "I*m hit in the liver, I'm hit in the liver."
The M.O. silenced him at once. He had been badly
bruised in the back and now sat whimpering in a cor-
ner, but he was temporarily insane through fright.
As I was to go back on a message for the M.O., I took
him and another wounded man with me. The other
patient had been badly hurt in the foot, but he took

207

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

my arm and walked with assistance. He was a small,
conscientious man, who talked continually and cheer-
fully as we picked our way through the trees and
shrubs or strove to stand upright in the mud. But the
madman ran ahead, crying to us and waving his arms.
We went very slowly, and would overtake him at cross
paths where he crouched behind a tree-trunk, peeping
out like a hare. The branches here and there had
been bent into fantastic shapes resembling bowers
and trellises. Shrapnel burst frequently over us and
made a strange knocking sound against the timber.
Boughs and whole trees crashed to the ground, and
the sound rang and mingled with homeless echoes. In
the pitiless light of day the wood was more terrible
than at dusk when the eye could not penetrate its
naked aisles : the smell of sap persisted like a poison in
the nostrils.

But the barrage was more intense behind the wood.
I gave the madman directions as to getting to the near-
est communication trench, and he flew off at once,
though we told him he was safer with us. We never
knew whether he reached the A.D.S. in safety. He on
my arm smiled and apologized for going so slowly,
though each step must have hurt him. He maintained
his conversation in an even voice, and mentioned that
he had left his best friend behind him.

"Eh, but he were a good pal to me,** said he.

As we passed the cross roads the shells were falling*
fairly thick, and we pulled our helmets well down -

208

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

over the nape of the neck. Meanwhile the conversa-
tion had taken a religious turn, and I heard him say
that he believed in Qirist very firmly, and so was not
troubled with personal fear. As he spoke a large
shell, known as a coal-box, fell about twenty feet on
our right. Gods of earth pelted us, and the smoke
rose like genii from a bottle. The thought occurred
to both of us that the thing was an apparition of evil
taking its place captiously beside his declaration of
faith. He raised his collar as though at a thunder
shower. With his arm in mine I did not even feel
surprised at the absence in myself of the common
sensations of fear. We did not alter our pace, and in
about ten minutes had crossed the barrage area. When
we came near the advanced dressing-station I directed
him and said good-bye. I had never met as brave a
man.

On my return journey I had occasion to pass the
trench where the day before we had held our aid-post»
and where we had eaten quince jam. I fotmd with
horror that the place "was now obliterated by shells*
and that the machine-gun squad, our hosts, were no-
where to be found. I remembered guiltily that I
had wanted to remain in this place, and paid a
mental tribute to the M.O.'s instincts in such
matters.

Then I continued my return journey to B. Wood,
following the same route, familiar by now. First
came the shallow communication trench, then the open

209

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

fields, then the cross roads with its drunken sign-
board and shell-pitted pavement.

But it was no longer for me a place of terror.

As before, the genii arose captiously on every side,
the air was full of uncouth sounds; but it was here
that that wounded man on my arm had spoken his
astonishing words and delivered me from the tyranny
of fear.

I, too, had believed as he had believed; but it
seemed marvellous and as though I had read it in a
tale that I should have been bound with one at such a
moment whose faith was greater than my own.

I reached the comer of the wood and paused for
a moment. The poisonous odor of sap greeted
me, and at once the figure of that other man mad-
dened by fear seemed to peep at me round the tree
trunks.

Then countless other dryads appeared, terror-haunt-
ed, and amongst them the figure of that German
prisoner, mad and compassionate, who had Icnelt
beside his friend, and whose lunatic eyes prophesied
to us what we in our turn would have to endure.

And what of these?

Is there any triumph for the grown man rejoicing
in the strength of his own spirit or of God*s, while
hundreds of children, while one child is driven mad
beside him?

Rather there is more mercy in these blundering
shells, more truth in three notes of a bird sung in the

2lO

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD

storm, than in all the half-creeds and half-righteous-
ness of men.

Here in this scar across Europe, between the op-
posing lines of guns, I knew that both the strong and
the weak offered equally to a spiritual God their cour-
age and their terror in protest against every false
compromise between good and evil that has gone to
produce — ^this.

2X1

CHAPTER XI

**WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

"And solemn before us
Veiled, the dark Portal
Goal of all mortal: —
Stars silent rest o'er us.
Graves under us silent"

•^Goethe.

IN the hot July night the night Sister came slowly up
the ward between the beds. She had passed down
a few minutes ago; now she was coming back. She
moved like a figure of fate, the shaded lamp she car-
ried in her hand shone on the underside of her chin
and on the tip of her nose. Some of the patients
groaned in their sleep. Others watched her apathe-
tically as she passed.

I whispered to myself, ''She likes the Australian in
the next bed better than she likes me." Then sud-
denly I fell through a pit into a restless land, which
was a method of going to sleep.

I was very busy carrying my own leg on a stretcher
through Montauban. Chatham was the other bearer,
and Albert walked beside me repeating, ''It's all right,
sergeant It's all right." At times we halted and lay

212

*WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

flat on the ground and began talking about various ir-
relevant things, while flights of gas shells passed over
us with a long screaming sound which never stopped.
We went on through a shapeless land; but when I
cried "Halt," Chatham would not obey me any more
and presently I realized that I was on the stretcher
myself. I said good-bye to my two friends and felt
very sorry to leave them. I was now in the company
of others and we seemed to be rumbling and rolling
along a trolley track. Lifting my head I saw another
man beside me on a stretcher and recognized him as
a gunner we had ourselves brought in an hour before.

"We meet again/* 1 said.

He did not reply. He was terribly changed in so
short a space of time, but I recognized him perfectly.

When we came to the ambulance cars, or flying
mortuaries, as the orderlies called them, we were taken
oflF the trolley and laid on the ground. The orderlies
lifted us and moved us about in an unconcerned man-
ner, shouting and talking to each other as they did so.
"I suppose I looked and talked like that when I was
one of them," I thought.

But the gunner was not put in a car with the rest
of us.

"He's dead," said an orderly.

Then began a very long jolting drive. I could not
help thinking of the gunner whom I had caught up
on his last journey for no apparent reason, imless it
were to see him die. He had been knocked over by a

213

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

shell on the road near our dressing-station, where we
found him lying on his back looking quietly up at the
sky. He had a leg off at the knee. "It's funny how
differently men take it," I thought. "Some will call
for their mother for two hours. Some will lie like
this, like children on their backs in the grass."

Then when we had brought him to the dressing-sta-
tion the officer swore at me for looking at him and
doing nothing. Others dressed him, not I; I could
only look at him and loiter about. When he and
other patients had been carried away there was an
interval of about twenty minutes before the shell fell,
during which the station was free of patients. Dur-
ing that time I realized we were all half dead with
fatigue. We stood about, moved from one place to
another, and stood again, like pawns in a game, wait-
ing. Then I went down into cavernous shadows.
What if that shell need never have fallen, killing none
but our own bearers, killing my brothers? I seemed
at grips with Destiny herself, like a lunatic wrestling
with a tree.

Presently I found Mack beside me in the car. Other
friends had come to say good-bye, but Mack remained
beside me for no other reason, but that that was his
character. He talked in an even voice and I seemed
to steal strength from his for the journey before me.
Then he, too, said good-bye and returned to his cor-
ner of that evil land as Chatham and Albert had done.

For a long while I was alone in a horizontal crowd,

214

^WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

all flowing in the same direction. Once I spoke to the
man next me, a sergeant-major who was covered with
woimds. He was an elderly man with a quiet fatherly
manner. His conversation grew less and less, and
presently he grew worse. They stopped the ambu-
lance train and left him.

"Change here for Heaven," said a witty orderly.

We started again. From my position on the floor
of the train I continued to watch the tops of the pop-
lar trees pass by one after one.

Then another orderly with an enormous book came
along jotting down our religions. "What is your re-
ligion?" he roared in my ear. The thumping of the
train suddenly became intolerably painful. I sat up
and found myself awake, staring at the night Sister
who came towards me without altering her quiet de-
liberate pace.

"Did you call for me?"

"No, Sister."

"As you are awake now I will do your dressing."

The saline dressing was very painful and fatiguing.
The night orderly held the lamp while the Sister un-
bandaged my leg. She wad highly trained and all her
movements were quick and even, but not mechanical.
She had also preserved a disciplined sympathy which
is quickly detected by patients, however sternly it is
overlaid. To suffer pain from others is soon to per-
ceive their character. This woman did her work in-
exorably, but the pain brought no resentment with it

«S

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

I could see the orderly's profile as he held up the lamp.
He often glanced at .me over his shoulder with a look
half inquisitive, half professional. When the dressing
was over I waited expectantly for a mug of warm
milk. Every night I was afraid she would forget,
but she always remembered. To-night she also
brought two tablets of aspirin.

I fell again through a sudden hole into another
realm. But this time I dreamed I was dead.

I passed several beings, one of whom came close
to me and said, "Fm very sorry for all you young
fellows, you haven't had much of a time."

I acknowledged him vaguely and went forward
moved by a pleasant impulse like that of going to
meet friends.

Then another person met me and accompanied me
on my way. He spoke reasonably and I felt a rare
pleasure — ^that of listening to, and following a power-
ful and enlightened mind and understanding each
step in his discourse. At every step I weighed the
idea he put forward as impartially as if it had been
my own, and at each step the joy of perception and
understanding increased.

At one point the path seemed difficult. I took his
arm and the movement was familiar. I wondered
whether we were walking or thinking, our progress
seemed as much a thing of the mind as of the body.
The enjoyment connected with it was an athletic en-
joyment.

^i6

*WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

At one point, in reply to some difficulty I had put
forward, he replied, ''You have still the idea of suffer-
ing too much behind all your thoughts. Of course, it
is natural, seeing what your activities and those of
your friends have been. On earth men are much
concerned with suffering and have coupled it with their
highest achievements, with Love and with Knowl-
edge. Consider the Poet of Galilee. Men have rec-
ognized his idea of a Kingdom as a great achieve-
ment, they have called it a Revelation, yet they have
emphasized his suffering above the suffering of
others.

''Men have instituted a realm of suffering called
Hell and many of their finest minds have been more
interested in it than in Heaven. Heaven where there
is no suffering — as they conceive it — fails to interest
them. They have chosen a word to stand for their
conception of Heaven — a word which has become al-
most a term of contempt — ^Utopia. Yet you will fol-
low me I am sure when I say that the amount of suf-
fering men have added to the Galilean Idea is a
measure of the importance they attach to it. Rather
than think of it in the light of Utopia, they have
coupled it with untold suffering and sacrifice.

"Men dread SA:unty more than they dread Inse-
curity. That is the cause of their hatred of Utopia
and of their mistrust of Heaven. Suffering is insisted
upon as a token of the risk without which life is con-
sidered undesirable."

^17

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

I I '■ saa

"Undesirable I" I cried, "it is only because they lack
imagination. Desire follows upon vision ... I be-
lieve that. ..."

"You have faith/' he replied. "But men can attain
what they truly desire."

It was here that the path seemed difficult, and I
took his arm. Presently he laid a curious image be-
fore me.

"You all remind me," he said, "of men sitting
blindfolded engaged in a life's work of reading in
braille and studying existence by that means, with in-
credible labor, when you have nothing to do but untie
your own bandages and use your own eyes.

"Now the mastery in braille achieved by some
minds is magnificent, nay, stupendous. By its means
they have perceived nearly every phenomenon of life
except light. But their achievement and their tragedy
go hand-in-hand, for presently they forget that they
have eyes, and some of them truly go blind.

"The Poet of Galilee, who identified himself com-
pletely with his Idea, called himself the Light of the
World. He pointed out once and for all that the
simple man who has never blindfolded his eyes, or
the wise man who has torn off his bandages, and
trusts his own vision, is wiser than the most accom-
plished scholar of life in braille. For this vision, this
direct perception of Life, means to have nothing in-
terposed between yourself and it, means to mingle
with it, to live it in the very act of perceiving it. By

2l8

^WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

this means Desire and Vision are perceived to be the
same. By this means only consciousness of Life and
Life itself can go forward hand-in-nhand, and happi-
ness rather than suffering takes its place with Knowl-
edge.

**Wherever consciousness of Life becomes sepa-
rated from Life itself suffering is insisted upon as a
value rather than joy: and it has been the mark ^nf
some of the very finest and most penetrating minds.
But it is false to ascribe that suffering to the Poet of
Galilee. Men have attributed to him their own weak-
ness. He is the man of all others whose capacity for
life is equal to his consciousness of it.

"For you and the uncounted ones you love, sunk in
the sufferings of your time, do not be misled by those
sufferings. All your discoveries, all your activities
must now be in tiie direction of Life itself.

**Remember joy."

The word leaped in my brain. Ah! I had really
forgotten, not the word, but the thought. Joy, peace^
good-will 1 I turned, but my companion had gone.

I pondered the thought he had left with me, and
it begot in my mind a desire for companionship. All
at once I seemed to emerge upon a sunny pathway
where there was short grass under my feet.

Around me on all sides now expanded the loveliest
landscape, in which natural objects appeared to me so
transfigured, yet so familiar that on beholding them I
felt a yfetime of twilight had come suddenly to an

219

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

end. The radiant air filled all interspaces with a beau-
ty of its own. The grass path on which I found my-
self was bordered on each side by very rich deep
grass in which at times I caught little gulfs of blue as
of gentians. The trees were of the two kinds I
loved, tall aspiring French poplars and aspens, stand-
ing in groups and yielding to each other in magnifi-
cence, and in other directions the broad English oak
islanded in the grass and complete in itself.

At first I did not notice the sound of birds, for
there was no special note to attract attention. Then
gradually there was revealed a morning liirobbing, as
it were the essence of sound itself, in which when I
listened attentively all varieties of notes could be dis-
tinguished: the long flute of the thrush, the happy-
hearted cheeps and chirping of the finches, the dream-
calling of tihe warblers, and sounding above and
through the whole, certain eternal overtones coming
from myriads of humbler little voices.

As with soimd, so with light; objects near and far
were seen with the same delicacy as on a distant hill-
side. Light seemed not concerned to show the bound-
aries of things, but to shine through each and all. By
an effort of thought, individual shapes and colors
could be perceived and intensely enjoyed, but with a
kind of exotic enjoyment as of a swimmer who lingers
before his plunge.

Then I realized as I looked and listened that I did
not truly desire to make distinctions or to seek out

220

'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?'

one impression lovelier than another. I recognized at
last that what was so exquisitely familiar as to fill
me with the profoundest joy, was the experience of
harmony.

A group of men came towards me along the grass
path, occupied with shouting at the top of their voices,
laughing, and making conversation. I recognized
them almost immediately as some friends I had long
held jealously in my mind. Joe was amongst them,
the first of us to be killed on the Somme, Conlan, who
was killed at the water-cart, Binny, who used to sing
Scotch songs, and other stretcher-bearers who had
been killed.

A welUknown voice came to my ears: **Sergeant.
. . . Why, here's sergeant," and I quickened my
pace towards them with a feeling of indescribable
joy. But before I could reach tiiem, a grotesque
figure made a sudden appearance beside me and be-
gan asking me fussy questions. When I first saw him
my heart sank. He asked me what my religion was
and I burst out laughing. Then he said he was an
Army Chaplain and very worried because some of
his C. of E. boys refused to rise again. *They won't
rise again," he repeated mournfully.

The voices of my friends now seemed very near,
but I knew that this was so ridiculous that I must be
dreaming.

"They won't rise again, though I mentioned the
'atonement,' " wailed the voice in my ear, and almost

a2i

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

immediately I felt myself surrounded by walb of
pain.
I woke.

The day's work had heg^n in the ward though the
light was scarcely more than twilight. I stared in
front of me for some time while I tried a more com-
fortable position for my splint. Then I turned to see
if the man in the next bed was awake.

He was an Australian, known as No. 34, that be-
ing the number of his bed. He was now sleeping
very lightly and I could almost see his eyes through
his transparent eyelids. Sleep visited him less even
than she visited me. I knew that in a few moments
he» too, would be awake and glancing up and down
the ward in his restless way searching for any object
of interest.

I had conceived a great admiration for this man and
used to lend him my safety razor. When he was
asleep like this I realized by comparison, his extra-
ordinary vitality. He was not subdued or irritated
by pain, but appeared to flicker in and out of con-
sciousness; wheil he was not talking or laughing he
lay thus like an extinct volcano, asleep or wit^ closed
eyes.

Looking up and down the ward I could see who
were awake and who were enviably asleep.

'That chap opposite sleeps all day and aU night,**
I thought irritably.

*WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

Pat, the Irish Fusilier in the special bed, was
awake. He was the show patient of the ward, and
used to be allowed an ounce of champagne with his
dinner. Distinguished visitors always stopped op-
posite his bed. He had frequent painful dressings
against which he used to protest too much, so that no-
body minded him.

Now he was lifting his arms up and down like a
child and humming to himself.

Next him came a very thin man, an Englishman,
with a leg that might have to come off: a man who
suffered a good deal, but who never made a sound
and who used to bite his blankets dtuing his dress-
ings. Next came a wild Canadian, always called
Happy, who never spoke but at the top of his voice
and who slept all night like a top. Next him came a
little Scotchman with deep parallel lines on his fore-
head, who had been in hospital as long as Pat, and
who gave vent to bitter thoughts. My immediate
companions included three Australians, No. 34 on
my right, one on my left called No. 33, and a middle-
aged Australian farmer opposite who had a fatherly
manner and was only slightly wounded.

This was our community, consisting chiefly of leg
cases. But beyond our land of legs lay other zones
with other inhabitants, of whom we had vague re-
ports from time to time, notably of one who had lain
for five days in No Man's Land, and of another
who owned three chintz bags full of personal kit

223

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

The fatherly Australian opposite was awake. I
caught his eye across the bed-clothes. We were think-
ing of the same thing.

"Is that cup of tea coming round this moming?'

"I hope so — it's the best meal in the day.''

"If I don't get it, I don't shave to-day, thafs all
about it," I said.

Shaving was a fatigue, like reading, like having
one's bed made, like writing home, like everything
in life.

But we were not disappointed. Wee Willy, the up-
patient, who was as useful in the war as three order-
lies, came skipping along the beds with mugs in both
hands. I watched him coming as an animal at the
Zoo watches a visitor with buns. He left a mug with
me half full of freshly brewed tea. I drank it, and
felt immediately that I would like to read a book^ then
I changed my mind and decided to think.

"What pudding is it for dinner to-day?" I thought.
"Is it apples after dinner, or had we them yesterday?"

My Australian friend on my right suddenly opened
his eyes and tried to sit up.

"By Jesus!" he declared. "Have I been asleep?"

At that moment the night Sister came up with a
thermometer and silenced me by putting it into my
mouth while No. 34 had a conversation with her. He
said his leg was giving him jip. She immediately went
down on her knees beside him and began arranging
small pillows round his splint.

224

*WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

With the thermometer in my mouth I watched her
angrily. She spoke little, but after each arrangement
of pillows she looked enquiringly at No. 34 with her
fine gentle eyes.

"Of course," I thought, "she likes him for his wild-
ness and wit, and because he's an Australian. Wish I
was an Australian. ... He has probably forgotten
that he has to decide to-day whether to have his leg
off or not. But why not take a little notice of me
too? . . . Women are all like that, all have their
favorites ... all take the personal attitude. ..."

No. 34 thanked her and said he felt easier. "By
gum, I wish youM stay on duty and do my day dress-
ings. The other woman's got fingers like claws."

We all knew he alluded to the day Sister.

Up the ward from the other side now came a very
tall willowy lady, with a patient face. She was
dressed distinctively as a superintendent, and she was
making her morning rounds. She carried three sweet
peas in her hand.

She graciously noticed each patient as she came
along.

"No. 33," she said to the patient on my left. "How
is No. 33 this morning? No. 19" (to me), "how's
the leg? No. 34, you slept a little, I hear. What, not
slept at all? I call you three the three legs. It's
Sunday morning and the sun is shining."

Thus she murmured to us and passed on. But she
had left the three sweet peas with me.

225

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

''Of course/' I tiiougfat, ''die point about women is
tiiat they remain human in spite of everydiing. • • .
They think of us as individuals • . . tiiqr take a per-
sonal interest/'

The day orderlies had now come on duty and were
polishing the floor in their brown canvas shoes.

"What sort of a bloke is that tall heggatr/' said
No. 34. "Think he looks as if he'd buy me some
greengages?"

"Better ask Wee WiUy," I said.

"Hey/' called out No. 34. "Orderly, get us some
greengages to-day ; a franc's worth."

"All right, chum/' said the orderly without arrest-
ing the steady slide of his polisher. "Youll get your
greengages all right."

"A say, Orderly/' called out Happy the Canadian
from the bed opposite, "think the doctorll maik me
for Blighty to-day?"

"All right, chum," said the orderly as before;
"youll get to Blighty all right."

"Try them after dinner," I said to No. 34. "It's
too early in the morning."

Breakfast came along and the night Sister passed
us as she went off duty. She nodded to us as she
went past. She carried a little woollen coat over her
arm.

At breakfast No. 34 found an address on his egg
and asked us all whether he thought he ought to an-
swer it or not. "It don't seem right to eat the ^g

226

^WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

and not obey the instructions on the lid. ''Amy Smith
. . • Wesley Cottage. ... Do write. . . ."

The egg was eaten but not answered.

"Does he remember about his leg?" I wondered.

After breakfast the day Sister came up the ward
saying "Morning" to every one as she passed. When
she reached the end of the ward near the nurses' bunk
she called out to one of the orderlies in a shrill voice :
"Rumsden, be quick and get the gramophone ; it's our
day for it, don't you remember? quick, or well lose
it, and then I want you to get me that irrigator from
the Dispensary — ^hurry — ^fly. . • •"

"All right, Sister," said Rumsden, the nursing or-
derly, from under a bed. "Hany one would think I
was a gentleman of leisure."

"Fly," repeated the Sister, arranging the dressings
on the trolley and looking at herself in a concealed
mirror at the same time. Then she went into the
scullery and came out again. Her voice penetrated
everywhere. The work of the ward accelerated and
went forward in a series of little storms.

The thought of the morning's dressing began to
darken me.

On a shelf opposite there was a box with the words
Michals Stow Away written upon its side. "What the
hell does Michals Stow Away mean?" I thought.

Of the two periods — the night and the day — ^into
which my life was divided, I pref .'rred the night when
that silent woman walked up and down and when so

22ff

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

many meaningless objects were hidden from sight.

The gramophone was brought in and a series of
rapid tunes were played. The Sister said she knew
some people didn't care for it, but they were not to be
selfish and prevent others from enjoying themselves.
Her arguments were unanswerable. "What about
that poor devil at the end with a bit of shell in his
brain?" I thought. "He'll have to learn to be un-
selfish too."

I longed suddenly for the sight of a friend. What
were Bill, Mack, Chatham, doing at this moment. I
felt intensely lonely.

"This is the meaning of lU-health," I thought "Iso-
lation. I and these others are no longer men. . . .
We have failed to survive the struggle for existence.
This war is a struggle for existence and we are the
weak who have gone to the wall. • • • And how
late the post is this morning."

I felt very sorry for myself and enjoyed the sen-
sation. Better any sensation than none at all.

Then came a moment of sanity. The gramophone
had stopped.

"It is well for once to be alone and helpless. It is
well to depend for once on nothing but the bare level
of human nature. Now you can test much. ..."

The gramophone had stopped out of deference to
the surgeon who had entered, wearing his white coat,
and was now at the other end of the ward. The
Sister perceived the fact immediately. She finished a

'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?'

slight wound she was dressing, told the patient it
didn't hurt him because it couldn't, and sent an order-
ly flying. Then she walked quickly between the beds
to her trolley of dressings, with arms stretched out,
and issuing shrill orders.

"She'll never make a nurse," said Happy the Ca-
nadian.

"'Shell make a matron, though," said Scotty;
"they think no end of her here. Wait till you've been
here long as I have, lad."

The surgeon was going to different beds, marking
the bed boards. When he had finished marking them
he put the board down on the bed in an absent-minded
way. To some patients he made monosyllabic re-
marks; others he passed over in silence. His face
always wore a portentously solemn expression for a
young man, and was faultlessly shaved. He stood in
the middle of the floor for a short time speaking to
the Sister, whose eyes flitted about the ward as she
spoke, then they both went up to No. 34's bed. The
surgeon stood looking out of the window while the
Sister unrolled the bandages. He then bent over the
leg and looked at it for a long time. Then last of
all, he looked at the patient.

He spoke slowly to No. 34, asking him simple
questions. His solemn eyes looked as if once, long
ago, they had been human and still had vague recol-
lections of past uncertainties.

He was a scientific child.

229

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

Then another surgeon came up, not wearing a white
coat, and they looked at the leg together. They
seemed to communicate to each other without words.
The leg was broken above the knee, and above and
below were wounds in various stages of sepsis.

No. 34 was glancing about with an expression, half
comic, half worried.

"The wounds are very dirty,** said the solemn one
at length. The other surgeon walked away quickly.

"There's trousers, puttees, and outfits inside *em,"
said No. 34.

The surgeon did not smile, but looked at the patient
a moment longer than necessary.

Then he looked again for a long time at the wotmds
in silence.

"I can't promise to save the leg," he said at last.

Silence.

"Much better to have it off."

"What's the use of one leg to me, with my job?"

"We can't set the bone owing to the state of your
wound."

But No. 34 would not have his leg off. He didn't
really think about it at all. He knew very well he
wouldn't. He was not aware of the fact that the
highest mortality from woimds occurred in cases of
broken thigh-bones, even without such complications
as his own. "He doesn't know," I thought, "and I
shan't tell him. And even if I did it would make no
difference."

230

'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?'

The surgeon said, "We will do our best for you,"
and as he said so, his blind face tried to express some-
thing but failed. But as if to atone, he looked again
at No. 34 longer than was necessary. For a moment
I felt sorrier for him than for the patient. He turned
to the Sister and told her to get some Caryll tubes
ready, and that he would return presently and do the
dressing himself.

Then he went out of the ward.

''He^s a cheerful bloke,'' said No. 34, who was now
having his bed re-arranged, and a fracture mattress
put under him. "Sister," he continued, "what's the
use of one leg to me on my job digging, pipe-laying,
and knocking round?"

The Sister laughed, "Ha, ha, ha," and rearranged
the loops of hair she showed under her cap. She
added, "I should do what the doctor says."

"But I was in hospital once before and I got well
in a week.

"What withr I asked.

"What with? Operation for appendicitis . . • in
Sydney Hospital. I was up in a week, and we had a
rough house in the ward. ... I went weight-lift-
ing in ten days."

The Sister put the finishing touches to his bed
and removed the section of mattress under his splint,
in preparation for the dressing.

"Hey, Sister. . . . Where the devil's she taking
my mattress to?"

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

**Youll be all right/* said the nursing orderly.
**YouTl be a pet case. TheyTl take an interest in
you."

"Interest! Great nuggets! They do take an in-
terest in you here — take away half your mattress,
offer to cut your leg off, and then tell you to make
yourself comfortable."

"Better nuggets here than up at Pozieres/* said the
quiet Australian on my left.

"Where did you do your digging then?"

The Sister had meanwhile gone forward, with her
trolley table and retinue of orderly and Red Cross
nurse, to the bed of Pat the Irish Fusilier. She stood
holding a syringe with sterile hands while the orderly
lifted the patient by means of the special pulleys on
his bed. Pat began to call out long before he felt
anything. "Oh me— oh me, Sister— 111 not be pulled
up and down this way like a piece of meat on a lift.
.• • • Oh me • . • oh me."

We laughed and continued our talk, but fafawttSar
made an unpleasant impression, l^e Sister scolded
him well and continued her work.

"He shouts about nothing," said a man opposite.

*'Sh^ doesn't care — ^if she does hurt him," said
Scotty.

"One fool torturing another — and she'll come to
me next," I thought

"Oh me. ... Ah me. . . . Oh me," went the
^oice.

»32

'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^

Will the morning never come to an end?

She came back along the ward and stopped oppo-
site my bed, while she called out to the orderly. The
Red Cross nurse came after her pushing the trolley
of dressings, and when she stopped she looked nerv-
ously at the Sister.

"Quick," said the Sister, "well do Sergeant next.
Fetch the saline."

A patient opposite was nursing his bed-board and
gazing at it with delight. "Sister," he cried, "I'm for
Blighty. He's marked me England B."

She arranged the irrigator over my leg, and re-
plied to him vivaciously: "Youll be all right then.
You'll go to-morrow. Mind you write something in
my album."

I looked at her and said to myself hopefully, "She
doesn't mean to hurt."

The gramophone began again.

"Don't be top strong-minded. Sister," I said. But
she looked at me without understanding.

The saline started to flow and she held the nozzle
in position. "Wee Willy," she called. "Fetch my
album out of the bunk, and give it to No. lO."

The world grew gray with pain.

"I've got it, Sister," called out Wee Willy.

The gramophone was repeating an idiotic scream-
ing song that we had already heard three times that
morning. Cries came through the window from the
next ward ; they always came at this time of the mor-

a33

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

ning from some unknown patient They were not
complainings or protests. .They were the cries of an
animal in pain, and the voice of the gramophone
could not drown them.

. Michals Stow Away said the box on the shelf op-
posite, and my brain repeated the words Michals Stow
Away — Michals Stow Away. This is madness — God,
for something sweet and sane to look at! Fools tor-
turing fools — ^this is the only meaning in life — anony-
mous suffering with a touch of the grotesque. ..."

"Sergeant," said a voice, "whatever is the matter?"
I caught a glimpse of the Sister's face with her ex-
pressionless china-blue eyes, as through a mist; then
she went up the ward a few steps, calling out to the
orderly about patients* dinners.

I had forgotten that it was not her fault at all that
I was in pain. I hated and feared her.

The gramophone continued, the cries through tiie
wall answered my own pain, and Michals Stow Away
waited for me opposite when I should open my eyes.

But the morning's comedy was not over.

When I opened my eyes again the solemn surgeon
had returned to the ward and was engaged upon
dressing No. 34 in the next bed. The dressing took
a long time and the Sister stood by, handing instru-
ments and holding gauze and plugging. The nursing
orderly also bent over the bed in an uncomfortable
position holding the leg.

234

'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?'

The surgeon did not speak. From my bed, with-
out caring to notice them, I heard movements and
the occasional sigh of die orderly whose back was
beginning to ache.

Once I looked at No. 34. He was probably suflFer-
ing more than I had done, but he made no sign. I
wondered what he thought on these occasions.

Sometimes he drew in his breath through his teeth.
He wore that look as of an extinct volcano for a
long while, then he seemed to come to himself and
made a sign of pain. The Sister, who was not in
awe of the surgeon, cast her eyes about and laughed
a little. No. 34 gave her a sharp glance, but he made
no further sign after that.

The surgeon worked very carefully and deliber-
ately. The orderly was right — ^he had taken an in-
terest in this case, and he continued to take an inter-
est. The patient eventually owed to him both his
life and his leg.

But this was only the beginning of things, and the
state of that leg would then have scared any one but
such a surgeon. He handled and scrutinized the
Caryll tubes and the syringes as if time did not exist.
His face was that of a child playing with serious toys.

At last the dressing was done and he went away.

Then it was that No. 34 looked very gravely at the
Sister and said, "Sister, I shall never marry a hospital
nurse.'*

There was silence in the ward and every one in the

23s

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

ndgfaboring beds heard the words. We all laughed
at first, but No. 34 was serious.

The Sister was taken aback. ''What— why
eve r

**YovL laughed at me just now when my leg hurt"

"Laughed— I was *'

**No, I shall never marry a hospital nurse. Sup-
pose I broke my arm and my wife laughed at me?"

She began to laugh, but stopped. We were all as
much taken by surprise as she was.

"I — I was only trying to cheer you up/* but with
his eyes upon her she knew it was not true.

''I don't care. I shall never many a hospital
nurse.*'

I was amazed to see that she did not resent him.
Yet it was nothing less than his ultimate criticism
of a woman; and this she perceived. She did not
retaliate, but walked away, and returned continually
to his bed, asking him, "But why ?"

In her china-blue eyes there was for once a puzzled
expression. Her clipped mind fluttered like a bird
in a snare.

I thought, "It's no use— his words have achieved
what no irony, pleading, or patience could have
achieved — ^with what intelligence you have you will
think about it, and talk about it, and tell other women
about it. But you will never forget."

Yet I liked her for not resenting him. Long after
she made him write something for her in her album.

236

CHAPTER XII

HOMO LOQUITUR

*1 love to feel where words come from."

— Woolman,

THE morning's ordeal in the ward was followed as
a rule by a comparative peace fulness after the mid-
day dinner. The Sister, before going off duty at two
o'clock, had ordered the gramophone to cease for an
hour or two, because the man with a piece of shell in
his brain had contrived to fall asleep.

The glass doors had been opened, and a warm July
breeze from French fields and gardens entered the
ward.

For some time I watched the flies at their antics
below the tie beam of the roof, darting and clustering
hither and thither. Then I realized that I was listen-
ing to the voice of Pat, the Irish Fusilier, and that
others were listening. Only when the ward was quiet,
as now, could he be heard speaking in an ordinary
voice. He always lay on his back, so that we never
saw his face properly, and he addressed his conversa-
tion to the ceiling.

"You may know," he said, "that the best stout in

237

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

the world is Guiimess's, and it's made in Dublin."

'^Guinness's is good stuflF/' said Happy the Cana-
dian, ''and itil mix with whiskey/'

''And d'ye know why it's so good?" continued the
voice from Pat's bed; "111 tell ye. It's because it's
made of canal water. It's the canals of Dublin are
considered such fine water for brewin'."

But here something occurred to distract our atten-
tion. Heads were raised from pillows, and glances
were directed up the ward to an individual who had
made his appearance and had b^^ a slow prc^ess
from bed to bed.

With some patients he spent a long time; with
others he appeared to speak for a moment only.

"Who was he?" we asked.

Then a rumor came from pillow to pillow that "he
was asking each patient if he had been confirmed."

"Confirmed? What's that?" asked Happy of the
Scot in the next bed.

"Ask a C. of E. I'm the other religion when these
blighters come roimd," said Scotty.

"Blokes come round askin' this that and the other.
... I dunno— " commented a patient who held a
Japanese parasol between himself and the sun.

Then we suddenly lost all interest in the incident
and continued to listen to Pat. He was sa3ring —

"I tell ye it's the canal water they use and no other.
Ask any fella from Dublin. It's the most convaynient
to use, and they use it And I'll tell ye this, that

238

HOMO LOQUITUR

once they began for to usurp the old* canal boats with
new boats that were motor-boats, and the oil got into
the canal and spoilt the water. . . . I'm tellin* ye
the truth, . . . And then there was the divil to pay,
and Guinness's had hundreds of barrels returned
. . . well, there was a little revolution in Dublin
about it."

**And what did they do?'* asked some one.

"Well, they took off the new boats off the canal and
used the old ones. They had to. . . . There was
some peogle said Guinness's stout was the will o'
God.''

We all laughed at this.

"My life, he's a rum bloke, ain't he?" said the Aus-
tralian in the bed next to mine, who was always
called No. 34.

"He's barmy," said a quiet Englishman in the bed
next to Pat.

"A bloody unexpected bloke," said No. 34. "I likes
them."

"Well," said Scotty opposite, "if Guinness's stout
is the will o' God, I'll take to releegion." And for
many of us that was the only occasion on which we
saw Scotly smile. His name was Drury, but he was
always called Scotty.

'You're right, Pat," shouted some one, "there's no
living without beer,"

Any further remarks from Pat's bed were drowned
by the three Australians, who under a sudden inspira-

239

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

tion began to speak together about their own country.
I was glad of this, and felt that one of those moods
had fallen upon us in which men will beguile them-
selves with their own minds.

The fatherly Australian in the bed opposite began
to describe the small farm he had left in charge of
his partner. He mentioned facts only, but I seemed
to get a picture from his words. He had not been
as badly wotmded as most of us, and his energy
persuaded us imconsciously as we listened. The
other two Australians threw in remarks from time
to time.

He seemed to be looking at a wide, flat, rather
parched country shaded at intervals by tall trees under
which the sheep gathered for shade. Big fences ran
in straight lines to the horizon, and cattle stood lazily
by the banks of a river. Through the trees he saw
his own house; and he mentioned the number of
horses in his stables.

"Of course," said he, **we think you don't know
what living is over here. We have the best cream
and butter of our own making, and keep our best
stock for our own meat. Meat meals three times s^
day with puddings and pies."

"Pumpkin pie!" murmured the Australian on my
left dreamily.

**. . . And there's no Australian'Il eat frozen
meat. . . . You'll have to do the boys well or theyll
leave you. . . .

240

HOMO LOQUITUR

**Yes> I'd advise any young chap who'll work to
come out. . . And the money's in the land. . . .

"I've a young chap now running my farm ; he learnt
his job under me, and now we share. If I sell out
after the war and go to Tasmania planting bananas,
he'll have it all if he wants it."

For the first time in my life I felt interested in Aus-
tralia. Lying in my bed I couldn't help thinking about
that "young chap" who had stayed at home. A pa-
tient from the other side of the speaker's bed echoed
my thought.

"So the young chap stayed and you joined up?"

"Yes — I don't know, I wanted a bit of a change.
And he was keen on the work." Then he added,
"There's not so much of your young and old out
there."

"There's a lot to be said for Australia," I thought.

My friend No. 34 had now taken up the conversa-
tion, and glanced in his restless way up and down the
ward as he spoke. "I don't know your Victoria coun-
try — not much," he said ; "I've been up and down in
Northern Territory and in Weste'n Austraily. . . •
By Jee, if you're a good cook up there the dollars 11
roll in. . . ."

"And there's one thing — ^you never know who
you're goin' to knock against."

"You know ICalgoiui?" asked the Australian on the
other side of me.

"Yes. D'you know it? . . ,1 was goin' to say

241

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

You know the hotel with the peony-in-tibe-slot piano?"

••Yes— I know if

**Eh . • . we were having a bit of a night there
Not a rough house, ye know. . . . And there was a
little bloke sittin' lliere I never seen before. We
didn't know who he was. He seemed a bit down at
heels and wearing an old pair of togs — so I started
talkin' to him. ... I thought he looked lonely. We
had drinks all round; we got chums . . . see? And
this chap . . . after a bit, he said he'd pay for some
drinks . . . and he was worth half a million dol-
lars. A nice quiet little bloke, he was. He told us
about it. He owned a couple of little gold mines
• . . said he'd had a bit of a surprise. Hadn't found
'cm out more than a month. And we'd chummed up
with him 'cause we thought he was down on his luck.
It was through him I got a ten dollar a day job
afterwards."

'•You never know your luck, and that's a fact,"
said No. 33. ••I remember once I met a Yank in Syd-
ney — ^said he'd come to Sydney to learn the English
accent. ..." But this promising story was cut
short by Scotty, who half raised himself in bed and
interposed a passionate utterance.

••Well, how you chaps could 'a been such thunder-
ing fools as to leave your farms and your ten dollars
a day and cross half the world to come to this — to
this" — ^and he waved a clenched fist at the roof of the
ward,

242

HOMO LOQUITUR

"Well, what about me?" shouted Happy the Cana-
dian, apparently waking from a doze. "What about
me? Walked eight hundred bloody miles to enlist/*

We all gasped at this. *'Eight hundred miles!"
some one said incredulously.

"Yes, eight hundred miles; and if ye don't believe
me, look at the map of Alaska and see how else I
CO »ld get from Nome to Dawson City while the rivers
were frozen. There was a hundred and twenty of us
altogether came from Alaska. It's States territory,
but they're mostly Canadians up there. Me and my six
brothers walked it and dragged a little sledge with our
packs. The trail was good and hard."

"What do you find to do up in that cotmtry?" asked
the fatherly Australian.

"All sorts," said Happy.

"Done any digging?" asked No. 34.

"Nope," said Happy. "My old man has a post for
the Hudson Bay Company. We all helped him and
did a bit on our own if we wanted. One time I'd go
after a bear. Or do a bit of dog driving. But I was
most round the old man's place. There's a lot to learn
about skins. Now he has only my four sisters to help
him, and one with a kid. There was seven of us came
away when we heard about the war. Now there's one
killed and three of us wounded beside myself."

"What sort of a country is it?" asked No. 34.

"You'd not like it," said Happy, rather defiantly.
Then added in a loud voice, "There's not many likes

243

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

it— not been bom there- It's mostly winter, but by
God when the summer does come! . . . Everything
bursts out on you . . . trees and bloody big flowers
. . . and all the animals go daft."

''Nine months' winter wouldn't suit me," said the
fatherly Australian. "Some of our chaps never seen
snow till they come to these parts. I'd only seen it
once myself."

"Snow. ... I'd give ye snow," said Happy.
Then in the hot July afternoon he raised his voice
as though some spirit was speaking through him, and
gave to us his home in a few incommunicable bursts
of language. When he had finished he glared at me,
to whom he appeared to address his remarks, but he
left before me a vision into which his own rough,
childish face fitted perfectly: the vision of a land
silent but for the cracking of pine boughs under snow,
overshadowed by tmscaled mountains and washed by
seas never free of ice.

At a point where three trails met was the trader's
post, his home, and accessible only on his own feet.
Here the trappers came with their skins, and great
bargaining was made over them. One of the log
huts was filled with tinned meats, canisters of coffee,
and ready-made cothes hanging from the ceiling.
These the trappers took away in exchange. In an-
other log hut the skins were sorted and dried.

In the summer months trees were sawn and stacked
for the winter, while the flowers sprang and died and

244

HOMO LOQUITUR

birds sang all day long. But in September, when the
first snow fell and ridged the logs of the huts, the
blacksmith's hammer rang on the runners of new
sledges, and at the sound the husky dogs stole back to
the settlement from the woods and from their summer
mates the wolves.

"Guess you'll call it an uncivilized country," said
Happy after a pause, "but if I could get back to it I'd
not leave it in a hurry. I've learnt some cruelty since
coming to civilized parts. If I could once get back
they'd not catch me in a hurry. I know a few little
wild places."

No. 34 called out to him across the floor of the
ward.

"By Jee, I know a spot or two in Northern Terri-
tory where they'd not find me. But I'd take a year to
get there from here."

"Wellj why did you enlist, Happy?" I asked.

The Canadian paused for a moment and then said —

"Because of the adventure."

"And what d'you think of the adventure?"

"It's the worst God-forsaken trip I've struck yet."

Then I asked No. 34 why he enlisted.

"I'm beggared if I know," he replied.

"Shall I tell ye why I enlisted?" said Scotty. "Be-
cause all the other loons did, and there's half the lads
did the same for no better reason. I know better the
noo."

"Know better than what?" But he was silent.

245

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

'Well, anyway," said a voice near by, "Fritz would
have done us down if we hadn't enlisted."

"We're not afraid of Fritz in our country," said
the fatherly Australian — ^''well, not before the war.
There were others we were afraid of- It beats me
sometimes why all our chaps enlisted "

Then after a moment's silence the thin Englishnmn,
who had the bed next Pat, began to speak. He suf-
fered a great deal of pain from a leg which the sur-
geon said might eventually have to come off, and dur-
ing his dressings he always bit his blankets, but
never uttered a sound. We all thought wdl of him,
and were anxious to catch his words. At first I could
not hear what he was saying because of a staff clerk
who came up the ward with squeaky shoes and went
to a bed at the top of the ward. At last I heard.

"• . . We're all here in this ward, and we've had
to pay the price one way or another, but why make
ourselves out cheap? If chaps can speak plain, we
can. I reckon the war had to come, and we enlisted
because it were our duty."

But at this Scotty half rose on his elbow, and I
noticed the parallel lines on his forehead due to con-
tinual pain.

"Well," he cried huskily, "if this flaming war is
the will o' God, I'll die a bloody atheist. . . . You're
right about speaking plain. . . . Christ! I can speak
plain too. I ken weel I'm goin' to die. The last five
in this bed have gone, and that's a fact, for I was

246

HOMO LOQUITUR

in this ward before my last operation. Scotty's to
ha' seven operations, lad, and die on the slab, I ken
weel it's a fact. And he's had six. And mind here,
if I get to heaven some one'U get into trouble, for if
there's a God 111 want to know why He's a pro-
German. • . •"

"He's a fiery little bloke, ain't he?" said No. 34.

"I don't believe much in heaven myself," said the
fatherly Australian.

"Austraily's good enough for me," said No. 33 on
my left.

The Englishman had turned his eyes on Scotty.

**No offence, Scotty," he said ; "but there must be a
heaven, my boy. This place isn't good enough."

I looked at him with interest. "He's a colonist,
toa" I thought. "A colonist in the spirit."

Scotty had been lying rather exhausted after his
last outburst, but he now got an arm out from imder
the clothes and pointed to the little man who was
making his slow pilgrimage from bed to bed. "It's
these religious beggars I canna bide," he said. "What
I want to know is who was Jesus Christ, then, after
all? I bet I've suffered more pain in this bed than He
ever suffered."

"There was a chap near where I used to work," said
No. 34, "who got shut up for saying he was Jesus
Christ. He did. He went up to the sheriff and said,
'I'm Jesus Christ' It's a fact. They shoved him in
dink for it" '

247

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

''It's no good talking like that, and it's not right/'
said the Englishman. But the voice of Pat could now
be heard addressing the ceiling, and we listened to
him with a sense of relief.

''Ah, Scotty and me are fed up with no chance of
getting to Blighty. This Englishman here's a mild,
faithful fellow. ... I mind once I was that fed up.
... It was a long while since ... I was that fed
up in the barrack-room, one morning, that when the
orderly officer came round and says, 'Any complaints?*
I stepped out and says, 'I want a razor, sir, to cut me
throat.'"

We all laughed.

"And what did the officer say?"

"Ill tell ye. The officer was a bloody big feller
with bristlin' eyes. He called the room to attention
and sent for a razor and handed it to me himself and
stood glaring! at me."

"And what did you do?"

"I thought better of it. It was a fine razor and I
kept it But I've often . . . thought since I might
have used it then . . . and done wisely."

"By God," said Scotty, "if an officer done that
to me I'd ha' used it on the spot to spite him."

"It wasn't the officer I minded," said Pat; "we
became friends after. I held it in me hands and felt
the blade and I thought to meself, 'Shall I do it?' and
I give the feller a long look. He knew then I'd do
it as soon as not, for all I cared for him or the

248

HOMO LOQUITUR

British Army, We were friends after, and I was his
servant. He was killed a while since. ..."

"There's a part of the trail where I come from,"
said Happy, "where if you camp for the night they
say you wake up and want to hang yourself. It's a
wild part, and the boys like to pass on beyond it if
they can, but I've slept there good and warm myself
and felt nothing. But youll never get an Indian to
sleep there."

Then I realized that this was a debate in which the
speakers had only their lives for arguments.

"There's some of these officers have a good time,"
said some one.

"There's others beside officers," said Scotty:
"there's lads at home working at munitions getting as
much pay as a Ueutenant-colonel."

"Of course," said the fatherly Australian, •'our offi-
cers ain't as high and mighty as yours. Ill give the
devil his due, it's no bloody game being an officer in
this war, though he can take it out of his N.C.O.S."

"By Jee," said Happy suddenly, "if an officer hand-
ed me a razor like that "

"That's the Army, ain't it?" said No. 34, "each
man taking it out of the rank below him. That's
what I hate ^"

"It's all right for the man at the top," said Scotty.

"I reckon not," said the Englishman; "some of these
O.C.s don't have much of a time. One mistake and
they're done."

249

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"But they're not shot for it."

"They shoots themselves sometimes. Nay. We're
all in the same boat in the Army. It's the war."

"It seems funny," I said, "we always seem to get
as far as 'it's the war,' and no farther. But what's
the war for? We're all here from every part of the
world with plenty to complain about, yet don't know
why we enlisted. . . . Well, Happy says he enlisted
because of the adventure : and Scotty because his pals
enlisted. But what made his pals and him enlist —
that's what ^"

"Because we were fu'," said Scotty. Whereupon
every one laughed.

I gave up the brief attempt, hopeless as a hundred
others before it. These men, my masters in experi-
ence and the practice of life, were children when they
came to reflect. Freedom was the root and medium
of their lives, but the word was not on their lips. They
all had this in common — ^they were unconsdous of the
powers that moved them, apparently. Some could get
hold of outside ideas, but it seemed that the idea of
ourselves we could not grasp.

Meanwhile the little man, who was making his pil-
grimage from bed to bed, had drawn nearer. We
watched him now with agreeable curiosity. He wore
a pea-soup colored overcoat, although the time of
year was July, with a scarf and a bowler hat. He
carried a book in his hand. He withdrew himself
from each patient in turn, and then went bashfully

250

HOMO LOQUITUR

but resolutely up to the next But the rumor about
the nature of his mission was a mistake. We learned
on his near approach that he represented some be-
nevolent board who had undertaken to inquire at the
hospitals for missing soldiers. Without asking a pa-
tient's name, he inquired his regiment and battalion
and then referred to his book to see if any of the list
of missing belonged to the same. If so» he asked the
patient if he knew the missing man, if he knew where
he was last seen in the field, or if he had heard any
rumors of him.

Such inquiries are useful. Men of the same unit
often have a curious knowledge of each other's do-
ings, sometimes amounting to an instinct, which is not
lost on the battlefield. Also they seldom forget what
knowledge of the kind they once possess.

The little man had passed Pat, who had given him
a fine story of a n^an of the right name but of the
wrong division. Now he went up to the Englishman,
who had no information to give him. Next in the
line was a patient who slept nearly all day long and
who seldom spoke a word. He was asleep now, and
the little man having glanced at him withdrew on tip-
toe. Next came Happy, who sat up and shouted at
him, ''Umteenth Canadian Battalion." The little man
referred to his list. "I am afraid," said he — "I am
afraid — ^I have none of that unit on my— on my list."

"And a good job too," said Happy, and lay down
again.

351

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

Next came Scotty, wbo was lying with dosed eyes.
The little man went up to him and they appeared to
comnrane togetfier. Apparently there were several of
Scott/s battalion to inquire about The little man took
out a note book and began writing. For some un-
known reason we watched the pair with interest. Then
he left Scotty's bed, but hesitated and returned: and
we heard Scotty say —

''Ye can add another piece of information to thon.
Ye can add that the man's dead."

The little man wrote it down obediently, and then
said, "How — how do you know?"

"Never mind why I know," said Scotty.

The little man hesitated, and then said again, "Can
I have your name, please, in case the relatives of the
— ^man care to write to you?"

"Relatives?" said Scotty. He was now almost sit-
ting upright, staring at the little man. But he sank
back on his pillows and said, "Drury — ^my name's
Drury too."

The little man stared at him, evidently thinking he
was wandering, then hurried on to the next bed.

And, indeed, when Scotty began speaking again, I
also thought he was wandering. But he was not.

"Relatives. ... Relatives. . . . Once there were
relatives enough to hear of the death of a Drury . . .
many would hear and weep, and many would hear
and rejoice. ... Ma feyther's f eyther had the long-
est funeral in Paisley. He had the siller, but ma f ey-

252

HOMO LOQUITUR

ther poured it all awa' against the wall. ..."
Then he lifted his head and stared at me.
"Did you hear yon wee fella come asking me about
ma ain brother. • . . Missing, they call him, but I
ken he's dead. He's pushing up daisies the noo, and
111 be doing the same before long, and that'll be the
three of us. Before this blasted war ma mother had
three sons. She died after the last joined up a year
sin'. Jamie was killed at Ix>os, and the man that tells
me Jock's alive the day is a liar. . . .
"A ken weel a'm the last of ma feyther's family.
"They thought Jock was taken prisoner when he
was left in the wire, one day we raided Fritz's front
line. They sent a search party out for him but I'd
been there before them. He was deed, and I dragged
him to a wee shell hole and put earth on him. But I
put my ain field-dressing over 's face. There's some
afeered of No Man's Land. I liked it. I felt free there.
I went for a week by nicht and scuffled earth over
him, and lay close. I got my ain wounds beside him,
and wanted to bide with him, but they took me awa'.
"But I dinna tell any speirin folk about him"
Scotty then spoke of what had once been his home,
as a dying man speaks. A northern suburb of Glas-
gow stretches its modem stone-built houses, its shops
and factories, over what had once been green fields
and stretches of moor dotted with farm-towns. To
the north, on a clear day, can be seen the Western
Highlands, and to the south the smoke of factory

253

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

chiiiiiieys blowing over Clydcwater, and tinotigh the
masts of ocean-goii^ ships. As Scotty spoke he
seemed to identify himself widi his countty as com-
pletely as the previous speakers had done. His land,
like his mind, had been marred and overlaid hot pre-
served a wildness and a grandeur of its own, so that
I could not help thinking of the land Happy had
described, the land of the next bed.

But to Scotty's bed belonged something not per*
ceived in the others. Pain, despair and personal loss
set him at the moment above the rest of us. But he
was at all times more varied and more tragic. He
had with him the consciousness of the past, of turbu-
lent ancestors and the misgivings of an intellectual
race behind a tortured and faithless mind.

While Scotty was speaking, the VA.D. nurse left
in charge of the ward went to one of the beds and
b^an cleaning the bedstead with a dtister and some
spirits. At first my eyes rested upon her unconsci-
ously.

She worked tod rubbed industriously; to be left
in charge of the ward was doubtless a stimulus to
work. She bent down and passed the duster into
every nook and cranny of the wire mattress. The
stm shone on her strong healthy figure and on her
swift unconscious movements. Once she lifted her
head impatiently and jerked back the flaps of her cap,
then she stooped again and continued her work. My
eyes followed her movements. We knew she had

254

HOMO LOQUITUR

come from a wealthy home. "She, too," I thought,
"is having her adventures/' She was so unlike every
other person whom we had been considering that her
presence suddenly seemed something wonderful and
astonishing. We liked the V.A.D. nurses, and, more-
over, we often felt that they alone in the other camp
secretly sympathized with us.

Then a thought struck me. "She, too, is on our
side . • • perhaps."

Scotty's voice ceased, and I realized in a moment
that I had forgotten about the dying and protesting
man.

But others had heard him with deep, unquestioning
sympathy.

"So you're the last, Scotty?" called out No. 34.
"Thaf s hard luck."

Scotty did not reply for a moment, and then said —

"And to die among strangers."

"If this war don't do something, it's the bloodiest
jok^ I've struck," said No. 34.

"They say this warll end war, but I don't know,"
said the fatherly Australian.

**Who says so?" said Scotty; "I say we've suffered
our lot. Let others suflfer."

"That's not right." It was the voice of many
minds.

"No," said the fatherly Australian. "We're in for
the dirty work. Let's get it done while we're about
it, and leave a cleaner job for others."

255

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

"But if we don't know what the job is," I said. "If
we don't know why we enlisted or what's to come of
it."

"Well, I'U teU you why I enlisted. I haven't told
you my story yet," said a voice.

We looked to the left. The man speaking was the
Englishman. His voice was weak at first, but grew
stronger as he continued.

"It was owing to my wife. • You've all been talkin',
but you've not mentioned your wives yet. Well, it
was owing to her, apd I'm not ashamed of it

"When the war started she was bad with consump-
tion, and I was that put about on her account I had
no thought for aught else.

"But she thought a deal about it

"Our home was near Manchester, and her father
he was a local preacher at Preston, and we used to
go to Preston — see — for our week's holiday at the end
of September — well, the last week in September.

"Mind, there'd been a lot of my pals joined up, and
some of 'em had said to me, they'd said, 'Why don't
ye join up with the lads, Tom?' There was a lot
went from Lancashire in the early days.

"But, as I say, I were that put about, with her that
bad, I paid no heed to them ; but I must have had it
on my mind, I reckon.

"But anyway I made up my mind I'd have my
holiday with the missus, war or no war, and I'm glad
I had, too. We went all the way from Manchester

256

HOMO LOQUITUR

to Preston on top of a tram. The doctor at the Infirm^
ary said she didn't ought to travel by train because
of not getting the air — ^see — with her having consump-
tion ; so we went all the way to Preston on top of a
tram.

**By — ^she did enjoy it, too, and so did Jack — ^he*s
the nipper — ^well, he's a lad now.

"I wrapped her up warm, and we took near three
days to do it, by easy stages. On top all the way
and the weather were champion. Well, the doctor
said afterwards it added a year to her life.

"Well, we slept at a temperance hotel at Bolton one
night, and at Blackburn the next, and took tram in t'
morning. Took our sandwiches with us. . . . You
can see the country fine that way, too. Missus she
kept asking —

"Tom,' she'd ask, 'what's yon hill over there?' or
'I believe I can see the sea.'

"There's one place you come to over Preston. By !
the view's champion. You can see right away along
the coast, and away to Lancaster and Camforth.

"Well, it was on that ride I made up my mind to
join. But for all that I couldn't abear leaving her.
But the missus, she'd been thinkin' about it all along. ,
I remember well her words, though I can't just say*
whereabouts we were. The car had stopped for a bit,
and Jack — ^that's the nipper — ^was hanging over the
rail looking at one thing and another, and she had

257

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

hold of his coat lest he shotild fall. I remember
she turned to me and said, 'YouVe not to study me,
Tom/ she said. 'Happen if you go, then Jackll not
have to go when he's a big lad/ They were her
words, and I remember them sure as I'm in this bed.

''After our holiday I joined up, and she stayed
with her folks at Preston. The lad's living there
now."

'Tve a nipper myself," said No. 33 across the ward,
at which the fatherly Australian held up three fingers
to signify he had that number. The Englishman's
voice continued —

'Well, I reckon this war's for them, for him. I
reckon his mother saw that — ^then. That's why I say
it was all owing to her. I've had plenty of time to
study things out lying here. But it's hard to do the
thinking and the fighting. This war's not got to be
a bloody joke. 'Cause I've been knocked about I don't
want to see him done the same. Not him nor others.
I want better things for him. . . .

"If he wants to go to Australia or Canada I'll not
stand in his way, because I know chaps like you come
from there, and 111 say it straight, I'm glad I've met
you. But wherever he goes I want him to have his
chance. If he has a mind for study and wants to go
to big towns, I don't care where — England, France,
Germany ; I want him to go and hear no talk of war,
and have his fair chance, though happen hell come
home to choose his lass. My Christ! I've been a

258

HOMO LOQUITUR

slave — a slave, compared with what I want him to
be."

The speaker ceased. I loked at the man, at his
pale face now rather flushed, and recalled all he was
reported to have suffered. I had often watched him
biting his blanket during dressings, and I knew the
chances of his death were no less than those of Scot-
ty's.

Now I saw him in a new light

Then the Australian, No. 34, burst in suddenly,
''Well, and 111 tell you one thing Fve learnt on this
joint. I'm not set on pegging out like Scotty, and
I've no kids of my own — ^none I knows of — ^not yet;
but I've learnt one thing, I want my own country
again, my own life, and to be free."

"But that's what we all want," I cried. "All of us
here and in every country at war. . . . That's why
we all enlisted — for our lives to be free."

"Live and let live, that's it," said No. 34.

"Ay, but some has to learn to live and some to let
live," said the fatherly Australian, "that's where it
is."

"That means," I said, "that freedom means an
agreement." I spoke as much for myself as to others ;
but I caught the Englishman's eye, and he nodded
earnestly.

"And that's what we're learning," he said; "that's
what the war's for. People must understand each

259

FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS

other as we trnderstand each other here and now
. . . come from all over the world."

He paused and looked over to Scx>tty as though
challenging him. Scotty's reply was miexpected.

''It's no use argufying wi' fools that believe in God
— in God and this war."

"It's not the war, Scotty; therell always be chaps
like you. . . ." The Englishman was looking at
Scotty with pain in his eyes.

"Freedom means an agreement," I repeated desper-
ately, trying to draw his eyes away from Scotty. At
last he looked across at me.

"And for the great freedom," I said — ^"the great
agreement.

He nodded. But he was evidently exhausted: he
fell back on his pillows almost immediately. Then
we were distracted by a burst of laughter and con-
versation from the other end of the ward. The gen-
eral duty orderly passed between the beds carrying a
white bucket, full of tea. He seemed to carry away
with him all our prayers, desires and anticipations.
When he had passed. No. 33 was again trying to tell
his story about the Yank who said he*d gone to Syd-
ney to learn the English accent.

I recalled what the Englishman had said about it
being hard to do both the fighting and the thinking.

THE END

260

Haw Jioe thousand men Jbwnded a Brit-
iih comnmnUy in the heart qf Germany.

INTERNED IN GERMANY

Bj H. C MAHONBY

390 pages. Illustrated. $2.00 net.

IF you would know what life at a German
prison camp is like, live through it in this
book. The author, a British civilian, was
a guest at four, ending up with a long sojourn
at the notorious Ruhleben. Here is the story
of the life that he and his fellow-prisoners
lived; how they organized their own com-
munity life, and established stores, banks,
churches, theatres — in fact all the appurten-
ances of civilized life. There are also numer-
ous stories of escapes, of adventures in the
camp and even of the treachery of some of
their pro-German fellow-prisoners.

The book shows a side of the war which
has not previously been dealt with in full
detail, and it is, besides, an unusual record of
hardship and su£Fering and of the many ways
in which the indomitable spirit of these men
rose above the trials of prison life.

Publishers, Robert M. McBride & C6., New York

MY ADVENTURES AS A GERMAN
SECRET AGENT

By CAPTAIN HORST VON D£R GOLTZ

With i6 pages of illustrations^
$1.^0 net. Postage 15 cents.

FOR ten years Captam von der Goltz was a
secret agent of Imperial Germany. In this
remarkable book he tells the story of his
career, from the time he was plunged into the
whirlpool of secret diplomacy until the day in 1916
when he was released from a British prison and
sent to testify in the trials of various German con-
spirators against the United States. There are
twelve chapters, each one filled with incidents as
dramatic as any in romance, some of them thrilling,
some amusing, many of them momentous, but all of
them full of the fascination of real adventure.

Wliat TliU Book ToUa

Ten yean of German intriffue in the United States.

How the German GoTemment betrayed the German

Americana.

The real reason why Germany made trouble in Mexico.

The German Spy System in the United States and how

to cope with it.

Other startling revelations of the secret history of

today.

Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York

mmniiG of nponiuicr

Bj BERNARD ADAMS

334 Poges. Wkh maps. $1.30 net

**^TOTHING of Importance" say the
I ^ communiques when there is no big
action to report. Lieut. Adams has
taken this phrase as a title for the series of
swift, vivid impressions which compose his
book; his chapters, with their glimpses of
scenes in billets, in the trenches, of snipers,
working parties and patrols, bring the reader
more clearly in touch with the reality of war-
fare than do many more spectacular books.

"Few, very few books have come out of
the war more real in their message or more
poignant in their appeal." — The Cleveland Plain
Dealer.

"Of the scores of books which are pushing
their way into print nowadays as 'part of the
war propaganda, none more truthfully and
satisfactorily fulfills its mission than 'Nothing
of Importance'." — The Springfield Union.

Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York

The Red Battle Flyer

CAPTAIN MANFRED VON RIOmiOFEN

X2 mo. Illustrated. $1.25 net. Postage extra.
At all Bookstores

By Captain Manfred Ton Richthofan

THE most famous of German aviators was
Freiherr yon Richthofen who was killed in
action in April of this year, after being
credited with eighty aerial victories.
This book is the story of this German's ex-
ploits and adventures told in his own words. It
is the story of countless thrilling battles in the
air, of raids, and of acts of daring by the flying
men of both sides.

"Richthofen's Flying Circus** has become fa-
mous in the annals of aerial warfare. This book
tells how the "Circus" was formed and of the ad-
ventures in which its members participated.

'The Red Battle Flyer" is ofiFered to the Ameri-
can public, not as a glorification of German achieve-
ments in the* war, but as a record of air fighting
which, because of its authorship and of the in-
sight it gives into the enemy airman's mind, will
prove of interest and value to our own flyers as
well as to readers generally.

Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York

WILHELM HOHENZOLLERN & 00.

By EDWARD LYELL FOk

23J pages. Illustrated. $1.50 net.

A striking accomit of Germany as it is today, by a
former war-correspondent, now Captain of Field
Artillery in the National Army.

It appears to me that yon have been strikingly
fair and just in yonr estimation of Germansr's case
and have pnt your finger npon the real issue,
namely, her system of government with its false
ideals .... your book is interesting at this time
and should be illuminating to all serious minded
people." Major General Joseph E. Kuhn, Military
Attache to Germany, 1915-16, formerly President of
the Army War College.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDS OF
THE GREAT WAR

By FRANK J. ADKINS

2^2 pages. $1.23 net.

A study of the origins and causes of the Euro-
pean war.

The book as a whole is a singularly just presen-
tation of the sweep of the main currents of Euro-
pean history for practically one thousand years,
and it is written in a style that draws one on in his
reading from page to psigtJ'^Philadelphui Record,

THE STORY OF YPRES

By HUGH B. C POLLARD

118 pages. Illustrated. 75c. net.

The heroic story of Ypres, storm-center of the
Western Front.

Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York

THE NBW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
RBFBRBNGB DBPARTMBNT

Tliis book is under no oiroiunstanoos to 1
' ' token from the Boiiaing

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